CESAR MONTANO'S  NOT- SO- IMPOSSIBLE  DREAM

MANILA, November 5, 2004  (STAR) FUNFARE By Ricardo F. Lo - Is Cesar Montano doing a Don Quixote, fighting a windmill?

That must be how some people might react when they learn that with his latest project (by his own CM Films), Panaghoy sa Suba (a Boholano phrase roughly translated as Wailing of the River), Cesar is pursuing an "impossible dream" which is (among one of the film’s objectives) to help revive the long-dormant Visayan Movie Industry.

Besides producing and directing Panaghoy, Cesar also stars in the ambitious P25-million film which has an entirely Visayan (Boholano) dialogue (with English subtitles, don’t worry) and featuring a mostly Visayan cast, including (aside from Cesar who’s a Manghilot from Baclayon town) Juliana Palermo (from Davao), Joel Torre and Ronnie Lazaro (Bacolod), Caridad Sanchez and Suzette Ranillo (Cebu), and Rebecca Lusterio (the Boholana student who won FAMAS and Metro Filmfest Best Child Actress awards for her performance in Muro-Ami, the Marilou Diaz-Abaya epic action-drama topbilled by Cesar). Among the few non-Visayan members of the cast is Daria Ramirez who had to be given a copy of the script in English for her to absorb her character, and Jackie Woo (the Japanese actor who is one of Panaghoy’s investors and executive producers).

"Yes," admitted Cesar during a phone chat with Funfare yesterday (he was in Bohol with wife Sunshine Cruz as one of the recipients of the Raha Sikatuna Award, the highest honor granted to outstanding Boholanos), "I want to bring back the Visayan Movie Industry to its glory days. Besides, I hope that Panaghoy will inspire other producers to make movies using any of our natives tongues other than Tagalog."

Did you know, according to Cesar, that the Philippines has nine different languages and 89 dialects?

"It’s interesting to highlight any of these languages/dialogues," added Cesar, "and the country’s beautiful scenery."

The Visayan (Cebuano) Movie Industry had its heyday in the ’50s and ’60s with the late Mat Ranillo and his wife Gloria Sevilla (parents of Suzette) reigning as the King and Queen. There was a long lull, broken in the late ’60s by Gloria who produced and starred in Badlis sa Kinabuhi (Stroke of Life), the all-Cebuano tearjerker which won major awards at the FAMAS. Then, another lull. In 1973, Annabelle Rama produced a Cebuano movie, Medalyon nga Bulawan (Gold Medal), with Gina Pareño as star. Nobody else has dared produced another Visayan movie, until Cesar came along.

Star of such big-budgetted films as Rizal, Muro-Ami and Bagong Buwan (all directed by his mentor, Marilou Diaz-Abaya), Cesar shows in Panaghoy that he can be "another Marilou Diaz-Abaya," tackling an epic story set during the American Occupation (1942) and the Japanese Occupation (1945), with Cris Vertido as co-writer. The film was shot amidst the virgin splendor of Bohol, mostly along and around the Loboc River which plays a role in the story.

"Panaghoy is more visual than talkie," said Cesar who handpicked his actors.

For instance, the taong-grasa character played by Ronnie Lazaro delivers not a single dialogue. Thus far considered only a bold star, Juliana will surprise the public with her gripping portrayal of a role described by Cesar’s manager Norma Japitana as "a symbol of the Filipina during that turbulent era, vulnerable yet ambitious." The movie’s trailer was shown during last week’s presscon and it was, indeed, very impressive.

Another standout is Daria Ramirez who turned a "brief" role into a memorable screen event – "Especially her death scene," Cesar said. "I asked Daria to act only with her eyes for only 20 seconds but she gave me almost 40. I retained only 25 seconds of it but I assure you it’s a must-see."

That’s all Funfare is saying about Cesar’s "not-so-impossible" dream (after all) for the time being. Early on, I want to remind one and all to watch Panaghoy sa Suba (and, for that matter, all the other entries at this December’s Metro Filmfest).

The Singing Chan Family

When Jose Mari Chan did his concerts at the Carnegie Hall in New York and at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, his daughter Liza Chan-Parpan performed with him. This week, the father-daughter tandem (which brought us the classic Christmas in Our Hearts) will be joined by Joe Mari and Mary Ann’s sons Joe, Michael and Franco in a special three-city concert tour of Japan (covering Chiba, Nov. 7 at the Palulu Hall; Tokyo, Nov. 12 at the Town Hall Funabori; and Osaka, Nov. 14 at the Osaka Cathedral).

Presented by the Assumption Alumnae Tokyo and the Associate Missionaries of the Assumption, the concert tour is sponsored by the Philippine Airlines in cooperation with the Philippine Embassy, Philippine National Bank, Philippine Chamber of Commerce, Tanglaw ng Pagasa, Catholic Tokyo International Center (CTIC) and the Catholic Tamatsukuri Church.

Jose Mari is pulling his children out of their corporate positions in the family sugar business for two weeks to help raise funds for the Filipino-Japanese Youth Educational Fund which helps in the education of bi-cultural children of Filipinas and Japanese living in Japan and are sometimes called "Doubles."

During a recent Conversation with Joe Mari and his children, we learned that Michael, Joe and Franco have all become songwriters themselves (music runs in the family, remember?) as a hobby, much like what Joe Mari is doing. All three play with their own band. Of the three, it’s Michael who has had an album released by BMG Records, entitled 5 Corners, which a few years ago won several Awit and KATHA awards including Best Jazz Album and Best New Artist.

The three sons all play the piano, guitar and bass. Said Joe Mari, "My sons are far better in music than I am. Their songs are progressive yet melodious."

Joe Mari is now a proud lolo of three grandchildren. Last year, the National Press Club (NPC) started to honor the platinum-seller singer-songwriter by creating an Outstanding Songwriter Award in Joe Mari’s name, with Rey Valera as first awardee.

There you are, the Singing Chans!

Rave Reviews For Magnifico

Yesterday, Funfare reported that Maryo J. delos Reyes’ Magnifico has been accepted as official entry at this December’s Cairo International Film Festival.

Here now are two rave reviews of the movie, one from the New York Post (a clipping of which was sent to Funfare by Raoul Tidalgo from New York) and another from The New York Times (sent by Funfare’s Toronto-based "international correspondent" Ferdinand Lapuz).

The New York Post review, entitled Magnifico Worth a Good Cry, by V. A. Mansueto:

Bet you can’t watch Magnifico without sobbing like a baby during its tragic finale.

When we saw the Filipino film at a festival in the Czech Republic, there were few dry eyes among the hundreds of viewers.

Afterward, fans gathered around the child star Jiro Manio – asking for autographs and posing with him for photos – as if he were a rock star.

Manio is magnificent as Magnifico, a sweet nine-year-old in the rural Philippines who keeps his impoverished family afloat with his good nature and good deeds.

He saves money to give his dying grandmother a decent burial. When his younger sister, who has cerebral palsy, wants to go to a carnival, Magnifico carries her on his back.

Magnifico’s hard-luck father, meanwhile, passes his time trying to solve his Rubik’s cube.

Director Maryo J. de los Reyes and writer Michiko Yamamoto shamelessly press viewers’ emotional buttons. But the film is so well-made and the performances so accomplished that it doesn’t matter.

And The New York Times review, entitled With a Family to Help Out, Who Has Time for Homework? by Anita Gates:

Nay (Lorna Tolentino) speaks for many when she says, "Life is a never-ending misery." But she has special reason to complain in this modest but engaging Filipino tear-jerker.

Her seven-year-old daughter, Helen (Isabella de Leon), has cerebral palsy, has never spoken a word and requires as much care as an infant. Her teenage son (Danilo Barrios), the smart one who was going to lift the family out of poverty, has lost his scholarship and come home from Manila to an uncertain future. Her other son, nine-year-old Magnifico (Jiro Manio), doesn’t show much promise beyond being a really sweet kid. Her beaten-down husband (Albert Martínez) has been working on the same Rubik’s cube for a year.

And she has just learned that her mother-in-law, who lives with them, has pancreatic cancer. That’s one more helpless person to care for, and they have no idea where they’re going to get the P30,000 or so (several months’ salary for a schoolteacher, we are told) it will take to bury her.

But the hopefully named Magnifico, in the tradition of omniscient innocents in international films, is determined to help – and to charm everyone the way movie characters occasionally do, just by treating impending death matter-of-factly. He sets out to earn enough money for his grandmother’s funeral, buy her a beautiful white dress to be buried in and gather enough scrap wood to build the coffin himself. (The coffin ends up being put to another use.) And if that isn’t enough, he needs to buy a wheelchair for Helen, so she can go to the carnival and ride the carousel. No wonder he isn’t an outstanding student. Who has time for homework?

This drama isn’t as maudlin as it sounds, thanks to the leading actors’ fine, understated performances. Maryo J. de los Reyes’s direction is sometimes extreme, and the Tagalog screenplay by Michiko Yamamoto (who won a scriptwriting contest with this) is marred by unlikely minor miracles and almost unbelievably cold adults (unless the English subtitles are gross oversimplifications). But this melodrama works, in its fashion. At this year’s Kinderfilmfest at the Berlin Film Festival, Magnifico received the Crystal Bear, the prize for Best Feature chosen by a jury of children.