In this day and age of the remote control and fast forward, when viewers have very short attention spans and want instant gratification, is the pacing of the movie you’re watching as slow as that of a pregnant turtle? Is the camera stationary and are scenes taken in one long tedious take? Are the characters just shown doing the lakad school of acting or just driving and driving around? Is it cumbersome, a test of patience, worth yawning, sleep-inducing, meandering, dragging, plodding, in short, boringga ba siya at gusto mo na mag-walkout?
Among friends who’ve seen the various entries, this is what we gather as the films with strong boringa factor: “Mariquina” – We don’t mind watching leisurely paced films as long as they’re truly worth it, like “The Remains of the Day”. In the case of “Mariquina”, for the life of me, we can’t
figure out how someone like the fair Barbie Forteza will grow up to be someone like the morena Mylene Dizon with chiselled features. We also can’t understand why her character is so hostile to her poor dad, who was sweet to her and even carried her piggy back as a child, and why she sides more with her irresponsible mom who was the one who abandoned their family. Normally, the child who was left behind will naturally hold a grudge against the runaway mother and will sympathize more with the parent who stays with her. Iniwan ka na nga ng nanay mo habang nasa restaurant ka nang di man lang nagpapaalam sa iyo, tapos sa kanya ka pa kakampi? Walang logic, di ba? Pwera na lang kung early on ay na-established na dream talaga ni Barbie na makarating siya sa Hawaii para sumayaw ng hula-hula with her mom who moved there.
Sorry but we really can’t sympathize with the leading character here as she’s also sketchily written. It is shown that she has a husband (Paul Soriano) abroad and she calls him up every now and then to inquire about their child. But why exactly is she in Manila while her family is abroad is never made clear. Nyeta!
Two New Breed entries are commendable in their attempt to show us the forgotten lives of our Southern countrymen and their culture: “K’Na, The Dreamweaver” and “Bwaya”. “K’Na” is set in Lake Sebu and shows the T’Boli tribe while “Bwaya” is set in the Agusan Marshland and is about the Manobos. But the boringga factor is also very strong in both films simply because they don’t have much of an involving story to tell. The material is really very thin and you can see it being stretched. No wonder both films are less than an hour and a half.
We love it that they use the T’boli dialect all throughout “K’Na” and we praise the actors who have to memorize all their long T’boli lines for being convincing. But we felt sleepy after a while, in spite of the bright and beautiful costumes worn by the characters that all look so newly made. The main conflict is that Mara Lopez is in love with RK Bagatsing but she is made to marry to Alex Medina to bring peace to their warring factions. Mara quickly agreed to do so and you don’t even get to feel any romantic tension between her or RK or Alex.
In “Bwaya”, it could have been a film about man against nature, but the writer-director chooses to make it more like a mournful docu-drama about the travails of a mom (Angeli Bayani) whose daughter is attacked and killed by a crocodile. We commend the movie for showing us the beautiful Agusan Marshlands in it aerial shots. We’re also show the utter poverty of the people who live there. But other than that the movie has nothing else to offer. When the girl was attacked, what we felt is: Ah loko, buti nga sa iyo, ang ingay-ingay mo, kanta ka ng kanta ng walang wawa at pinapalo mo pa ng sagwan yung tahimik na tubig. O ayan, nabuwist ang bwaya at kinain ka.”
Another movie with pronounced boringga factor is “1st Ko si Third”. The performances of Nova Villa and Dante Rivero as an elderly married but childless couple, who stay together just because they’ve become comfortable with each other, cannot be faulted. Their peaceful life gets somewhat ruffled when Nova’s first love returns from abroad. It’s fairly entertaining, but a lot of scenes just go on and on and on even if they’ve already made their point. You’d wish you’re watching it on DVD so you can flash it forward. Also, how come Nova and Freddie’s romance was aborted remains unclear.
More movies with boringga factor later.