Jay Abello's Pureza: The Story of Negros Sugar astounds with its scope. In its attempt to answer the thesis question of what the real price of sugar is, the documentary explores and investigates the magnitude of what is ailing the local sugar industry, from the seeming ignorance and insensitivity that continue to plague governmental intrusion to the culture of entitlement that was cultivated by centuries worth of luxuries that the money crop has provided. It mostly succeeds in making a gloomy galaxy out of a spoonful of sugar one normally puts in his morning coffee to sweeten his day and condensing that galaxy into less than two hours of consistently interesting and sometimes entertaining conjectures, challenges, and fault-finding. Abello's approach is academic. The dense narration,...
- 6/15/2012
- Screen Anarchy
There is no doubt that Mark Meily is a proficient observer of the absurdities of Philippine society. His first two films, Crying Ladies (2003) and La Visa Loca (2005), eschew the phenomena of women being paid to mourn for a recently deceased Chinese businessman and a man getting nailed to a cross to get a U.S. Visa of any serious implications for drama and comedy. Baler (2008), a period piece set during the war for independence where several Spanish soldiers are trapped inside a church as Filipino revolutionaries surround the church, is sadly an unsuccessful turn for Meily, who replaces his gift for finding humor in the deepest darkest recesses of society with trite and unconvincing romance. Fortunately, free from the restrictive clutches of a commercial studio, Meily returns to form with Donor, a hard-hitting black comedy that ostensibly tackles the kidney trade and the ridiculousness of the statutes that attempt to...
- 8/16/2010
- Screen Anarchy
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