Reflections on MMFF’s Ang Larawan and Jose Rizal

MANILA, Philippines — The good news is that this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) broke box-office records and surpassed the 2015 first- and second-day gross sales.

The bad news is that the three entries judged as the MMFF’s best (Ang Larawan, Siargao and All of You) were left behind in the box-office race prompting netizens to come to the rescue of endangered entries.

To illustrate, the year’s Best Picture (Ang Larawan) lost 15 theaters even before the awards night and got relatively better patronage after the festival jury’s verdict.

It had better audiences in middle upper-class turfs (Rockwell, Glorietta and Gateway) but suffered poor patronage notably in the provinces.

In contrast, the least awarded entries (The Revenger, Ang Panday) are already certified blockbuster only after two days with Meant to Beh getting a significant share of audience patronage.

It is highly commendable that the MMFF changed its rules and did not disclose who were winning and losing in the box-office race.

As it is, the result of the recent MMFF awards night is a classic case of division between jury’s choice and the ever-changing public taste.

Cineastes that include most members of the jury see the festival as a showcase of cinematic excellence while the masa see it as a chance to be entertained after a year of “bad news” ending in death in the highways, in the shopping malls and in the high seas.

To be sure, movie audiences are an unpredictable lot. This year, an indie film (Sigrid Andrea Bernardo’s Kita Kita) — reportedly made at a cost of a little over P11M — made over P300M at the box-office — a rare moment when movie critics and audiences agree on the good merits of a film.

In contrast, Ang Larawan got all the share of good reviews but ended up fighting for box-office survival.

What this indicates is that the movie-going public is such a huge market with varying, if, contrasting profiles.

For the record, the late acclaimed filmmaker Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s Jose Rizal set a historic record in the history of MMFF by receiving 17 awards in 1998 (it won all the awards, except Best Actress). And by a stroke of rare good luck, the audience agreed with the jury’s verdict and easily it became the year’s most talked about blockbuster. The film also broke the jinx that historical films don’t make money.

Alas, Marilou had her share of good luck at the MMFF. She duplicated another critical and box-office triumphs in such films as Muro-Ami and Bagong Buwan.

All her filmmaker’s life, Marilou tried very hard to connect with her audiences even as her other equally good output did not do just as well in the unpredictable box office.

Marilou Diaz-Abaya (with star Cesar Montano) on the set of Muro-Ami. Filmmakers should learn to connect with their film audiences.

In the past editions of MMFF, one watched all her films on opening day to monitor how they were doing at the box office. After her acclaimed Brutal, her films continued to dominate the awards night but some of them didn’t do just well at the tills.

On the opening day of her Muro-Ami which one thought was too serious and profound for the masa, one was at Robinsons Galleria at 10 in the morning and watched the film’s closest rival in the box office, A Judy Ann Santos-starrer (the title of which escapes me now). One asked the theater usher, “Where are the Judy Ann Santos fans?” when one noticed the theater was empty. “They are all in the adjacent theater watching Muro-Ami.”

That’s when one realized the movie’s message couldn’t be that “heavy” after all.

By just looking at my face after the advance screening, Marilou knew I loved the film personally but with a reservation equally written all over my face: What about the masa (general public) who will decide its box-office fate?

When she sensed one was worried about the possible outcome of her Noon at Ngayon (a sequel to Moral), she rued then: “You know I am more used to rejection than acceptance. Noon at Ngayon is my 18th or 19th film out of which only Jose Rizal, Muro-Ami and Bagong Buwan were blockbusters. Since I am more exposed to criticism rather than commercial success, I had a lot of practice keeping calm. Patience and calm are what you need and a lot of trying until you find the common language with your audiences.”

As a person and as an artist, Marilou found herself loving her audiences more than the film industry itself. When her string of blockbusters came one after the other, she considered it a major turn-around.

She confided it had taken her decades to make friends with her audience.

A graduate of a film school in California and London, Abaya came to terms with her audience thus: “For once, I realized the setback and handicap of a very Western education in which I systematically and methodically exerted to reverse. Because I could see the richness of our audiences from the very beginning even in my TV work, I could sense they have something more important than my Western education could not provide. The people who loved Ai-Ai delas Alas in Tanging Ina are certainly the same people who love and admire Randy David. They are certainly the same audience who will be moved to tears by the performance of Cecile Licad. They will avoid a movie if they cannot connect emotionally. It has nothing to do with intelligence.”

In one screening of Muro-Ami at Megamall, Marilou told me that she sat long enough on the toilet bowl in the ladies’ room during the intermission to find out feedback from her movie. “They loved the underwater scenes and they love the children diving into the deep blue sea,” she recalled.

When I reflect on Marilou’s MMFF triumphs, I also take note that Jun Lana’s Die Beautiful also received both critical and box-office acceptance.

It is my hope Ang Larawan does better at the box office and once more breaks the jinx associated with “historical films.”