Jay.2008.Francis Xavier Pasion

I know that nobody has quoted anything from this yet but I know that the best scenes in a television show are the ones that are happening behind it. The best scenes don’t really mean that they are actually good. Most of the time these realistic scenes are actually the most important and the production staff has to edit them down because they know that those scenes are not going to make it. This film could be an epitome of what is happening to our local cinema and I am just proud that Francis Pasion, the director, created this film.

The multi-awarded film gave a wonderful view of what is happening behind the scenes in a television documentary. It may or may not be exaggerated but it is really quite refreshing to see such film. It stars Baron Geisler as Jay, a gay documentary host, that tries to investigate, help, and back track the events of how a person, who has the same name as Jay, died due to manslaughter / murder. The most important item in this film is actually the video camera and the actors and actresses actually just come in as secondary, as they are more of the puppets actually.

It was actually confusing at first. I thought I was watching a wrong film. It started off with a lot of unknowns and finally realized that this was the film when Baron showed up in the camera. I really do think he deserves that win, his portrayal was quite convincing. And he really brought a handful of memorable scenes. One of it was when he was interviewing the boyfriend of the dead Jay, yes the dead Jay is gay too, and he told him that he’ll just watch him take a bath. The scenes might lead to be sleazy but it didn’t turn out that way and giving the script for this film a five out of five for the geek glasses.

As said, the video camera is the most important item in the film. Why? For simply changing the actions of every one who’s going to filmed. It doesn’t matter if you’re the mother of the dead, the sister of the dead, the mayor, the boyfriend, the killer, or even Jay’s friends; it changed every one for the sake of the rolling camera. It was a sort of an eye-opener actually; that it felt like it was a realistic-sort of documentary of the documentary of sensationalism in our local news.

So, I was really lucky to watch this film. I know that I should watch more of those Cinemalaya or Cinemanila films. Yes, Indie films will still bring the art in despite its un-mainstream status. And this is highly recommended for those who love the Philippine cinema.