A morbid fascination

Film review: Deadma Walking

MANILA, Philippines — Almost everyone will have a morbid fascination over what people will say or think about them when they’ve “shuffled off this mortal coil.” At one level, the Palanca Award-winning screenplay of the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) entry, Deadma Walking, explores the fascination. At another level, it’s a humor-filled excursion into the psyche and life of the modern gay. It’s also a pithy examination of values, family and friendship. This is part of the magic of the film, how it works on several levels; thanks to the Eric Cabahug screenplay, the deft direction of Eric Alfonso and the winning portrayals from our two main characters — Joross Gamboa as John and Edgar Allan Guzman as Mark. A T-Rex and OctoArts co-production, it’s no surprise that this film got the nod of the MMFF.

As we are introduced to John and Mark, best friends who happen to be gay, we are immediately thrust into a world that avoids stereotypes. While Mark is a triple-threat entertainer in a gay revue; John, the son of a former beauty queen, is a successful businessman/entrepreneur, who runs a PR firm and some small businesses. The plot thickens as John is told that he has contracted a terminal illness and has a year to live. He employs Mark to help stage his death and funeral, believing it would be nice to hear what people will say about him. To achieve this, they plan to simply rely on a closed casket and then cremate the body of the John Doe they procure. Never mind the plausibility of this, as it’s merely the triggering mechanism for a succession of scenarios and set pieces that entertain and “educate.”

There are a number of inside jokes: How they use a photo of Cabahug as the portrait of the deceased in one of Mark’s production numbers. And there are the interludes of a French Art film starring Eugene Domingo — the kind of existential fare French cinema was known for in the ‘70s. The Filipino gay’s obsession over international beauty pageants is given free rein during the flashbacks of the wake of John’s mother (Bing Pimentel). And the cameos from a bevy of major stars during John’s wake add luster to the already shining storyline. As can be expected, a number of jokes are made of gallows humor, starting with how the two nickname themselves as the Crying Diva and Dying Diva.

It’s when the estranged sister of John (played by Dimples Romana) shows up, that the film turns more dramatic and bittersweet. Similarly, there is where John begins to question just how right he was to fake his death. The scene where from outside the window, John projects his voice to the bedroom where his sister is resting becomes one of the emotional high points of the film, as she confesses how much she misses him.

From a film with a deceptively simple premise, the filmmakers have created an insightful, relatively fast-paced story that helps us redefine family, friendship and mortality. While inevitable comparisons will be made with last year’s movie with a gay character in a casket, that would be too simple a comparison, as the two films are quite different.