As brutally-frank as ever

(Editor’s Note: Until end of January 2007, My Favorite Movie will feature only movies shown during a Metro Manila Film Festival from any year. Contributions must not exceed two and a half pages, short bond paper, double-spaced. We don’t return rejected articles. Published ones will be paid accordingly. E-mail your pieces at [email protected].)

I am a fan of a lot of the Lees. I consider the great martial arts guru Bruce Lee a hero. I love watching indie films by noted black American director Spike Lee. And my "girl" among Viva Hot Babes is Jennifer Lee.

But my favorite Lee of all is not a one-man-gang who can break limbs and jaws in a combo of kicks and punches nor a foreign filmmaker who loves the New York Knicks to the max. Neither is a sexy starlet who can make my body temperature rise. He is Mr. Ricardo "Ricky" Lee, arguably the best scriptwriter in the history of Philippine cinema.

Ricky Lee’s works have been consistent hits at the box-office and critically acclaimed. And he is doing it for decades. It is safe to say that at least one Ricky Lee movie will be in the shortlist of any Pinoy movie fan.

Among Lee’s masterpieces (Jaguar, Miss X, Carnival Queen and the Mano Po series to name a few), my favorite is the 1980 MMFF Best Picture Brutal, starring the triumvirate of pretty young faces consisting of Amy Austria, Gina Alajar and Charo Santos. I was just a four-year-old kid then. I saw the movie 15 years after it swept almost all major honors of the film festival’s awards night (Best Director, Marilou Diaz-Abaya; Best Actress, Amy Austria; Best Supporting Actress, Gina Alajar and Best Supporting Actor, Jay Ilagan). A friend, whom I met in Mowelfund in QC while applying for a slot for the annual Ricky Lee Scriptwriting Workshop, has betamax copies of the great screenwriter’s obras. We did not make the cut for the limited seats for the free lectures. But we formed a circle of friends with other scriptwriters wannabes.

We meet every Sunday to watch films by Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal and other great Filipino directors and of course, stories written by Ricky Lee. We also critique each member’s ideas, movie plots and scripts. But watching movies is my favorite part. I have seen a dozen of Ricky Lee’s and Brutal is the one that I really like the most.

The movie is quite disturbing and moving because of its frankness to show our society’s female stereotypes. It is not just the story of the three women in the movie – Monica, Cynthia and Clara – but of all Filipinas. Watching the film will awaken feminist sentiments without being completely anti-male.

Monica (Amy) is the virgin eaten alive by her own innocence. Clara (Charo) is the fake liberated woman who lived and suffered from her own lies. And Cynthia (Gina) is the whore who will do anything to get what she wants. Among them, my personal favorite is Cynthia because watching her is just like talking to someone you know. Her character is "cool" and it made me laugh in some parts of the movie. One of the most memorable scenes is the one where Cynthia was caught having sex with a young man in the school CR by an ROTC officer.

It was a funny scene to lighten up the serious topics of the film.

The movie is simply amazing because of its social relevance that mirrors the plight of the women of today. We see and hear in the news what happened to the likes of Nicole of the controversial Subic Bay rape case, young women being forced into cybersex dens, housewives battered by their "better halves," and the story goes on.

After more than 25 years, Brutal is still brutally frank! And you need not to be a Ricky Lee fan or to be a woman to like it because every one of us has a special woman in our lives.