CEBU, Philippines - Art is many things—it can be a form of expression, a translation, or maybe just art for art’s sake. Maybe, it is part ambition and part crippling anxiety.
For award-winning director Jerrold Tarog, his most recent work of art had hogged headlines in the past weeks after his movie, “Bliss,” received the dreaded “X” rating from the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB).
In its first review, the film had been banned from commercial public screenings due to its sex scenes, given that the film featured masturbation, gore, and full frontal nudity. After an immediate appeal however, the board gave the film an R-18 ruling.
In an interview following a recent private screening of the film at Robinson’s Galleria Cebu, Tarog claimed that “Bliss” was unlike any other film he created. Ironically, Tarog had wanted to create something scaled-down after the huge success of “Heneral Luna,” the highest-grossing Filipino historical film of all time.
“I’ve never done anything like this,” the unassuming director said. “Frankly, this is the most extreme thing that I’ve done. Before, ‘Heneral Luna’ was the biggest project in terms of logistics and after that I initially wanted to do something simple, something small, but what happened wasn’t anything that I thought it would be.”
The psychological thriller debuted in March at the 12th Osaka Asian Film Festival in Japan to critical acclaim. Lead actress, Iza Calzado – who plays the distressed actress Jane Ciego – won the Yakushi Pearl Award for Best Performer.
“Bliss” tackles a handful of themes in the most perplexing of ways. It follows the plight of Jane, a star who grew up in the showbiz industry. To gain respect and elevate her career, Jane decides to produce and star in her own film after getting tired of the cookie-cutter roles offered her way. But Jane gets involved in a terrible on-set accident which leaves her disabled. Temporarily crippled, Jane is trapped in her house while recuperating, and experiences the most bizarre things. With an unfeeling husband plus a strange nurse, Jane’s simple dream suddenly becomes an endless nightmare.
When asked what was going on in his head as he wrote the story, Tarog, who directed, edited, and scored the entire film, revealed that he was in unfamiliar territory.
“The whole idea was to write something about dreams and how those dreams are broken by an environment full of selfishness,” the director offered.
“Each character surrounding Jane is in some ways oppressed, but in another way they are oppressors as well. It’s a representation about how once you’re trapped in that kind of environment, the cycle of abuse just propagates itself.”
Tarog confessed how difficult it was to create something that was made up of so many elements, that the challenge of making a cohesive story out of the most complicated parts got him to experimenting on how to treat the film.
“The entire thing was a process of exploration for me, because I’ve never made these kinds of films,” said Tarog, whose first full-length film feature “Confessional” was shot in Cebu and featured Cebuano talent.
Tarog explained how it took him a while before getting the hang of telling the story, a process which was unlike how he usually attacked his films—and a process which left him panic-stricken.
“While we were doing the film, I was still looking for a way to tell the story. Usually, I am more organized. I can foresee the timing, I know the pacing of the actors. But when we finished shooting and I edited the whole movie according to the script, it wasn’t working. It really didn’t work out, so I kind of panicked.”
The director then said that he had to take a day off, and after re-editing the whole material, what came out was the critically-acclaimed, award-winning and deliciously astonishing “Bliss.”
Despite that, the real challenge was getting the movie out into the public: a battle which, luckily, Tarog and his team are more than disposed to fight for. Currently, the team is working on getting the film reclassified to R-16. Should that happen, all the production has to do is cover up the nudity.
Tarog pressed however, that he was not going to do anything else to damage the film for the sake of classification.
“One of the objectives of ‘Bliss’ is to present something that hasn’t been done in Philippine cinema,” Tarog said, as he explained that what MTRCB was trying to promote was self-censorship where filmmakers should have the initiative to apply changes should they want to have the desired rating.
“When the film opens, there will be no cuts. No cinema owners have the right to apply cuts. We are supposed to censor, submit, and then they [MTRCB] rate.”
Tarog admitted that they would have to adjust to a few things, but clarified that no more than what was needed will be done.
“We will cover the nude parts by blurring out some details. Will that make ‘Bliss’ less of a film? Maybe. But that’s a compromise I’m going to accept considering that no one does these films here very often,” Tarog shared. “But besides that, I’m not willing to do anything else to hurt the film.”
The director also believes that there should be a massive revamping of the guidelines used by MTRCB. Tarog thinks that the audience is ready. He knows that their appreciation for more sophisticated and imperative films is more than what it seems.
In a nutshell, Tarog explained how the first MTRCB panel who rated the film “X” weren’t really offended by the film. He said they were only looking out for the conservatives who might be offended by it.
“That makes the whole ‘X’ rating highly questionable because if you follow the guidelines, they were already highly inconsistent with it,” Tarog said, expressing a bit of frustration about the logic behind the rating, as well as the fact that the public has to make do with watered-down movies up to this day.
“There should be large-scale reform of the MTRCB guidelines. It’s very outdated,” Tarog asserted. “You can classify, but not censor. There was no call for censorship because it’s not constitutional.”
“You only have the call to censor when it presents a clear and present danger to the state. Those were the only grounds for censorship and having said that—do you think the film presents danger to the state?”
“Bliss” also stars Ian Veneracion, TJ Trinidad, Adrienne Vergara, Michael de Mesa, Shamaine Buencamino, Audie Gemora and Stepahnie Sol.
Produced by TBA (Tuko Film Productions, Buchi Boy Entertainment, and Artikulo Uno Production), have a taste of uncut and uncensored “Bliss” as it opens in cinemas nationwide on May 10.
Tarog, who said he does not feel the pressure to duplicate or surpass the box-office success of “Heneral Luna,” is currently working on the Gregorio del Pilar biopic titled “Goyong” with Paulo Avelino playing the titular character.