ALL ABOUT  ADAM:  THE  SCREEN  PHASES  OF  CESAR  MONTANO

MANILA, August 11, 2005 (STAR) By Ryan Salvador People Asia Magazine - The myth of Pygmalion is every woman's fantasy. She gets charm school lessons from a middle-aged hunk trapped in the prissiness and stylized British comportment of a scholar. Ultimately, all girls have the higher quest for refinery and champagne sophistication. But the myth doesn't stop for me. Pygmalion, a gigolo in camouflage spectacles, cuff links, pleated trousers and sterling silver manners, should be unleashed. He himself needs to be uncharmed.

The Charm of Cesar Montano, once showtown's lady-killer and horridly hirsute ham (see Ang Bukas ay Akin), is that he is uncharmed. Not that he is not charming; he is. In fact, he needs a new word for charm. A word lodged somewhere below the navel of gorgeous and above the groin of vulpine. Stunningly swarthy, he is the sinister side of tisoy - the return of the native in Diesel. Arriving late for the shoot, he apologizes and flashes a tart, cryptic smile. It is a primordial gesture, one that heralds the entry of an alpha male: dominating, penetrating. Moving towards us with a movie-star gait but unable to divorce the streetwise cadence, he offers a Boy Scout handshake with nails unmarred by any tinge of a manicure. A whiff of soap and water mixes with his pheromones. He could teach subtlety to the teeming metrosexuals whose mission, it seems, is to race Galatea in the holy-grail quest for the perfect pumice. He is her only hope - in fact, he could be her only decent lay.

And maybe Montano, too, is one of our few hopes in the local film industry. In the midst of the Mano Po continuum, a mock-docu travelogue in Italy that should've been titled 'Ilan, and Sandara Park, he comes out bravely defiant, setting afloat his directorial debut, the Visayan-spoken Panaghoy sa Saba, in mainstream Tagalog movies. It's like getting squished in the rapids, as movie piracy has decimated more than half of the movie-going public. But for Montano, who is also a UNESCO Philippines Commissioner for Arts and Culture, it's more like walking on water: triumphant in his experiment and splashed by accolades from various camps. Fresh, inventive, one box opening after, another.

Each time Montano essays a character, he reveals another dimension in his acting. Take for instance Jose Rizal, his breakthrough role and his magical, Houdini-like entry to the cinematic elite. Who could have thought that the Seiko regular could pronounce the words of Cicero with m~'? That a man of many smart aleck repartees could he a wit and poet in a bowler hat?

Muro Ami and Bagong Buwan are excursions into pinnacle acting. Montano meets Method. Like Brando and Russell Crowe, he proves that acting can be summed up by a sigh, a whisper, and a look, and tile "Stella!" shriek is usually reserved for the eye-of-the-storm moment - that moment when instinctively wise actors wait for tile swelling music and the extreme close-up and anticipate tile general admiration of a surprised audience. He puts dexterous swagger into his walk. His voice, more of a belligerent squire's than a crusading knight's, pleasantly blends with the soundtrack - it tells you what to do without sounding tyrannical, and then his color absorbs all the light and he fills the frame: an actor so sure of himself, and yet struck by his own self-parody. For unlike Crowe he doesn't bring his roles into real life. Unlike him, intense brooding is merely a screen projection, a foray into Diet Zen. It's all coffee-break acting because at any moment he will wisecrack, mock himself, connect with everyone in the room, and remind us that he used to be a lad in Sta Ana, Manila. Yes, he could do Troy and do a Brad Pitt rage-cry, only instead of doing it in barren terrain he does it in the chow hills of Bohol and speaks the dialect proudly.

Given the right role he turns sawdust into gold glitter, given the wrong one, he camps it up, destroys the seminal quality of his craft, and takes us back into the world of Machete. But nowadays every good thing falls on his lap. Like Miramax's The Great Raid, the story of Filipino prisoners of war in Cabanatuan during WWII, when the mighty prison camp was raided by American G.Ls and the native guerilla forces. It is a grand production, as Nlontano himself attests.

"It will be shown on August 12, here and abroad in 80 theaters here and 1,000 in US. The music alone cost one million dollars," Montano says proudly. He plays Captain Juan Pajota, a brave and clever rebel leader who works with American officers, played by Benjamin Bratt and James Franco, to rescue the 511 POWs marked for extermination by the Japanese. The film also features Joseph Fiennes and Connie Nielsen. A favorite among the European crowd at the Berlin Film Festival in which Marilou Diaz-Abaya's Jose Rizal was screened. Montano is likely to stand out among Raid's cast of Caucasians. Given the smooth audience response, he could very well be our version of Ken Watanabe or Haing S. Ngor. In fact, he instantly won Bratt's admiration. "He calls me `brown brother'," Montano laughs. "Benjamin is a wonderful guy and he'd laugh and mingle among the Filipino cast."

The role sort of landed in front of Montano, despite his participation in the auditions. His friend Gina Alajar informed him of the auditions for Captain Pajota, which went from New York to Los Angeles to Australia. "A lot of our local actors auditioned for it here in Manila, and when it didn't work out they were give minor roles. Luckily for me I was the only one asked to fly to Sydney and read there." It was fate. Like Atlas who bears the world upon his shoulders, Montano works double time as he attempts to charm his way through a more mainstream audience. After all, this is not a film featured in a festival, a place where Montano has carved a better reputation.

With the screening of his Panaghoy Sa Suba in Brussels and Hawaii and invitations in Russia, Tokyo, New Delhi and the Czech Republic ("I'm just waiting for Cairo and Cannes; we will not give up"), Cesar, with jellyfish-like movement, has turned himself from ham to pop action star to avantgarde artiste to global village exotica. We just have to keep our fingers crossed the way we did when we saw a glimmer of hope in his early, dependable performance in the Bernal classic Broken Marriage.

Montano is really bent on improving the local film industry and going international. "We Filipinos have our own story. We have our own culture. It's just a matter of being positive about it... that somehow those stories could get the attention of Hollywood producers. The Great Raid is a very good example. There are Filipinos everywhere and there's a market for these films." Yes, we have films for a wider market and and we've been invited to screen them in festivals, but when will our movies win the top prize? "It's not that I'm dismissing our movies. But maybe the best that we think is the best is not the best at all. We can still do a lot," Montano explains.

Though he's serious when discussing the future of Philippine cinema, he does a lot of joking, especially with his wife, Sunshine Cruz. "Shine can't get a decent conversation with me. She's very lucky if she gets a straight answer. I always joke around her, and tease her. And she just laughs in return, never really minding if I'm not serious. She's like a kid too, really," he says. They are now expecting a third child. It's likely to be another daughter. "Tatlong Maria," he blurts while shaking his head, more out of pride than disappointment. He claims to be a very hands-on parent. He narrates, "For me it's an opportunity to change my kids' diapers. Even if I'm groggy from sleep, I still do it. I give them baths and wash them. There's no wasted time with your children." He is a man who clearly sets his priorities in his private and public life.

But in the movies, Montano follows his gut feelings, which have never failed him. At the juncture of his popular career as a cheesy, macho, motorcycle hero, instead of joining the ranks of Robin Padilla and Bong Revilla, he rides his bike, cruises with Steve McQueen's Bullit, chats with Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider, and finally meets Marlon Brando's The Wild One. Montano tells him, "Cannes is a long way off, especially in my Harley. I may have to ditch it and take a plane." Buboy flies First Class, always.