SERBIS
By Tristan • Jun 28th, 2008 • Category: Movie Reviews
A Cannes Festival jury, wrote Brillante Mendoza a letter. As with what I can remember, it said something like this:
Brillante,
It was great to talk to you on Director’s Fortnight. You have an extraordinary film.
- Sean Penn
SERBIS created a sensation at the Festival de Cannes last month. Brillante Mendoza’s fifth film was only the third Filipino entry to make it to the competition category. A category only one director was able to be part of, the late Lino Brocka. Making it there was a feat in itself. Imagine your entry competing with Steven Sodebergh’s. For any independent filmmaker, this must be the thrill of a lifetime. Last night, I was able to catch SERBIS at the Robinson’s Movieworld and true to international raves, the film was no short of being brilliant.
Film is set in a run-down porn theater owned by the Pineda family. A day in the life, the opening scene acquaints the audience with the establishment as continuous hand-held camera movement follows Nayda (Jaclyn Jose) walking up and down dirty floors to reveal their actual residency. Then slowly we meet the rest of the characters. Alan (CocoMartin) tastfully paints lewd billboards while Ronald (Kristofer King) work the projector. Lando (Julio Diaz) cooks and serve food at their carinderia while Jewel (Roxanne Jordan) mans the ticket booth. Nanay Flor (Gina Pareno) strings the ensemble as the matriarchal figure.
As the day unfolds, so is the business. Inside this movie house, prostitution is a whole new industry in itself. Robust men buy tickets not to watch pornography but to actually do commerce. They offer sexual favors or “serbis” to the paying homosexual and oral sex is done right in front of the silverscreen. Giving life to the theatre, unsavory denizens flock and commune on and about.
But the Pinedas live a life impervious to the flesh trade. The whole family was put under an estranged situation upon the untimely passing of their father. To add more demise, the family learned that their father had an affair which spawned another family. Nanay Flor filed for bigamy. Subsequently, Alan impregnated her girlfriend. Now amidst poverty and dilemma, we see how this family copes up. Apparent introspection and realism echo thru walls. And in the end there is only one thing that gave them refuge. The theatre itself.
SERBIS is Filipino Neo-Realism at its best. Direk Brillante made sure that he captured the noisy background of road traffic with tricycles and jeepneys blowing their horn. I could go visit the old movie houses in Cubao now and see the exact same thing. The Pinedas are familiar as well. As we speak, there is a struggling family out there who live the same struggles. There is truth in the prostitution too. In many ways, SERBIS pointed out many of our country’s issues by simply showing the grim reality of impoverishment that affects daily living. Perhaps that is the film’s greatest achievement.
The Verdict:
A film every Filipino should watch, SERBIS for me is the template all independent films must follow. None of that experimental bullshit. We as a people are sentimental and our lives alone have all the drama any filmmaker could ever put into film. On that, I’m sure Lino Brocka would agree.
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