It was true that Kubrador was not able to hit the market of Philippine cinemas. But with the well-conceptualized story and well-written script, it became a hit for film critics and jurors.
Because Kubrador was an Indie film, surely, it had suffered doubly than the movies like I've Fallen For You, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Shaolin Soccer, etc. What else? For Indie films, finances were a headache. I guess for some miracle and with constant persistence of the staff, they were able to gather and/ or augment a meager budget for their production. Indie films continue to seriously suffer with having less helpers, less salary or talent fees, less promotions and less appreciations than those bountifully-produced movies. On the contrary, they give rise to exemplary qualitative movies like those of Lino Brocka and Ishmael Bernal.
I guess, due to this insufficiency, I can say that the shots taken were not fine. There was a lot of hand-held camera work. There were eye-level shots (Capili). But I cannot say that they were amateur shots.
Like Plato's Allegory of the Cave, Kubrador also has a lot of interpretations. In one instance, Amelita lose track on the way out of a certain place. Then, her son, Eric, who was a military, somehow appeared subconsciously on that scene. But in reality, her son, was already dead.
The huge numbers of underclass employed to this kind of work (or is it really considered work?) believed in chances. The ratio of probability of winning was only one is to multi-millions. Thus, this kind of work remains unproductive. But they are not aware of such irrationality in them. I think that even if they know that what they are doing will not lead them anywhere, they still stick to that game of chance because somehow those were the only chances life offered to them. So why not cling to it?
These people are locked up in the cave. And so, they are considered (by Plato) as narrow and close-minded. A good example of this was when these poor masa were caught or raided by policemen during their several working sessions. Even though a lot of them knew jueteng as an illegal gambling game, they still resorted to it instead of looking for other legal means of surviving. For me, I refuse to say that these underclass were totally narrow-minded For some reasons, I believed that they know the reality but then they just refuse or simply don't mind at all.
Let us now relate Kubrador with Noel Carroll's The Power of Movies.
According to Carroll, both movies and standard theatrical productions share many devices in common. One thing about it is to direct the audience's attention. It is true that movies have “more effective devices for directing attention than theater”.
Variability of Focus in Film. I can distinctly remember the shot wherein the picture frame of Eric beside the Sto. Nino was focused longer than most of the shots. Vivid shots to blurry ones to all black-- it resembled that of the real eye movements. The camera was used in such a way that the shots speak for Amelita's eyes. Amelita who came from work was looking at the picture frame and Sto. Nino with sleepy eyes. It was an indication that she went home tired after a long day of collecting bets. This for example, according to Carroll, is “a more reliable means of making sure that the audience is looking where the spectator ought to be looking”. And does differentiates it from theatrical lighting.
On the first part, there was a close-up view of FPJ's portrait. Thus, it was a “ significant detail” rendered to the audience. This gave a “concrete sense of what was going on”. For me, it says that the movie was shot during the controversial peak of FPJ-GMA rivalry. And somehow, the close-up suggested that the following scenes wherein a woman asked a vendor where Erap's remain lies (which was somehow funny since Erap's not dead yet) was related to FPJ. We all know that FPJ and Erap were good friends. Putting Erap on that scene makes sense. It relates him with the whole story of Jueteng issues.
Variable Framing. “Camera's change of position is not included in the shot”. The cuts were made in such a way that the events occurred in the dimension of time (major cuts). This indicated the shifting of scenes. As for me, it was a shift of scene that happened on one morning, afternoon, or evening.
What really caught my attention was the camera's movements especially on the first part. The camera was like following the man who wore the FPJ shirt. The jueteng story of Kubrador begun by following that man. For quite a long time, the man's actions weren't cut. So in that case, his every action was important to the development of the story. The same was done to Amelita. It was clear that the camera also followed her during her ordinary days of collecting bets. The shot was trying to capture the specific actions on how Amelita collected the bets.
In the course of these camera movements, bracketing, indexing and scaling was shown. As told by Carroll, these three different ways of directing audience's attention can be seen all at once when a standard camera is positioned, “whether executed by cutting or camera movement”.
Pictorial Representation. Since Kubrador was about the phenomenal jueteng, jueteng paraphernalias were of course shown. We recognized those as objects that “serve as the models for that picture”. The jueteng paraphernalias and the people who busy with it serve as cues in which we are able to know that it was a jueteng scene. It somehow tells us that it doesn't take an educated person to appreciate a film.
Erotetic Narrative. It did answer several questions I had in mind. At first, I didn't understand the ending part wherein Amelita (half injured) and a bystander was shot during a traffic commotion. And then the last two phasing of the camera was directed stagnantly to Amelita, with minimal people behind but with Eric (still on a camouflaged suit). The last one, Amelita was half focused and behind her was an unclear vision of moving people as the background which represent commotion. Now, I know the answer. The shooting incident was another reminder only because in the earlier scenes before that was shot before Eric's grave in a public cemetery.
I'm not so interested to talk about pleasure and unpleasure with regard to this film. First, I don't find characters erotic except of course if they are portraying one. Well, I have to force myself to analyze on this matter. I'll just try to synthesize a work hopefully worth reading.
It has been said that film is a heterosexual medium in which it is always directed on the male view. It is because of the prevailing patriarchal order. When we watch a film, we usually take a look at the woman as a desire (for men) and as someone like or different from us (for women). In the film, if I'm not mistaken, there were two scenes wherein Amelita took off her clothes and exposed her voluptuous body. At that moment everybody (we as the audience) looked at her. So, I guess there was desire for men. But for me, I was awed. How did she manage to undress herself in front men? Didn't she hesitate to take off her clothes? Then, I said to myself, “siya na ged!”
I cannot exactly pinpoint sadism in the film. There was no force to change in another person. They remained as they were, I guess. There was no victory nor defeat. But hey, I guess there was a battle of will and strength. The will and strength to gain more through her collection of bets. The strength to face the world and ask a prayer from God so Amelita won't be caught off guard. Somehow, there wasn't fetishistic scopophilia (erotic instinct is focused on the look alone). To sum it up, I'm just too shallow to criticize the film.
As an audience, I can distract the actor in a theater. But in a movie, I can't.
As far as I know, Gina Pareno played motherly roles. I do not know of her past. Certainly, I don't know her personally. In Cavell's Audience, Actor and Star, he said that when you see Amelita in the movie, you do not actually see her as the character but you see her as Gina Pareno, the star. She is not the kind of character an author creates but the kind that certain real people are.
Let's take another example. Judy Anne Santos. We all know her as the chubby girl long ago who can easily drive people to cry with her. We often see her as the protagonist. The one that was always slapped and kicked by antagonists. And now, look at her, from being a chubby person, she had changed over the years. She was no longer the chubby one but we still remember her as it was. Before, in a teen movie, her role was sweetums. She was paired up then with Rico Yan. And now, Judy Anne takes the center stage again. In a span of years, we have known Judy Anne Santos. The point of all these things is that whenever we see her in movies, we don't actually see her as the Ysabella of Ysabella or Andrea in Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo. We see her as Judy Anne Santos herself. The chubby girl who turned sexy. To support my argument, here it is.. Try to think about the characters played by Judy Anne over the last years. Don't tell me you'll remember the personality of the character she played. What you will only recall is really Judy Anne, the lead role of that movie.
Another example is Camille Prats. The child who excelled in her exemplary performance in Sarah Ang Munting Prinsesa. We can't discard the fact that Camille was the cute, pretty and charming one in that movie. And so, whenever we see her play the mature or even sexy roles, we always see her as the child princess in that movie. Meaning we can still see her as Camille Prats, the star and not with the mature roles that she played. She may be the cover girl of FHM, she may be the love triangle between Richard Guttierez and Rhian Ramos in Captain Barbell—she's still Camille Prats, the younger sister of Ultimate Four dancer John Prats.
Ryan Agoncillo. He was the Y Speak host for quite a long time. And when acting for movies, teleseryes, etc. opened its doors for him, still he is Ryan Agoncillo. He may be Andrew or Albert in Ysabella. He is still Ryan Agoncillo, the star, the current boyfriend of Judy Anne Santos.
Space, Time and Motion. Alexander Sesonske tells of space, time, and motion in film. Space in a movie is three-dimensional. It is when you see actors moving within that frame. The action-space of a film is unusual with its discontinuity with the space of our world, as what was shown in the film. At first, we see a woman running because of fear. Then we also get nervous like her in the film. The fear and nervousness that we feel increases even more. She was crying and in agony because of the pain. And she also took us in the chase yet we remain fixed in our seat. Sesonske, said that we experience the events and have the feel of moving when we aren’t. This what makes me feel excited to watch a movie. Like Harry Potter, for example, I feel like traveling from the real world to Hogwarts. I feel like I'm also one of them. I go as far as my imagination can take me.
In Kubrador, the use of such is not dominant: “The action space in the film is discontinuous in itself.” The actors and the viewers can directly go from point in action-space to any other without passing through any intervening space. As far as I can remember the only parts this was used were the part when the chase is over then went to the scene when Amy first appeared and the part from the house to the cemetery. It was as if you’re only following her wherever she goes and scenes don’t shift from one place to another. This tells us of what events occurred in the life of Amy. This gave us a view of what happens in her days so it makes sense that this feature of a film is not that used in this film. The viewer travels along with Amy as she walks the streets. The film somehow appeared more real.
“The action space of a film is experienced as confined within a frame yet as unlimited.” We are only seeing this limited scene of Amy within a frame yet we can move through it as the characters go to somewhere else. It's never-ending.
Time. Like space, time in a film is not of the ordinary world. “Viewing time,” the time of our ordinary experience in which watching a film can make you feel time is shorter or longer. When I feel that time is longer while watching a movie, then I'm bored. Recently, Ma'am Dans Lee required us to watch Before Sunset and Moulin Rouge. Before Sunset, I'm sorry if I may say this is the most boring film I've ever seen. It was because the time of the movie was really the real time. The whole movie was purely dialogue! There was no change in time. The time scenes were done before the sun sets. Unlike Moulin Rouge, I didn't feel bored because aside from its cinematography and tremendous production, the time used was not real time. There was shifting. Luckily, with Kubrador, I didn't feel bored. I just didn't like the "bitin" ending. But somehow I've made my earlier realizations why it was done that way. The highlight when dealing with time in the movie Kubrador is how it managed to let the movie spectators feel that Amy’s day is over and another night has come. In Kubrador, what is seen in the day to day life of Amy were only those significant aspects, she wakes up, talk with his husband, sets out for another collection, talks with people convincing them to bet, goes to the “boss,” then went home yet it felt that we have seen it all. Sesonske said that a skillfully made film may convince us that nothing at all has been left out. In several instances, tiresome was all there. I even felt that way.
Motion. Sesonske talked about the familiar experience: what we have which is a moving panoramic view. As he said, “...the view of the lens of a camera transforms this familiar experience.” How a person sees things differ from that of a camera. But in the movie “Kubrador” I can say that the director played with the traditional use of camera in a film. The camera was like the vision of someone involved in that scene. Yes, it was more than hand-held camera works. For me the movement of the camera is shaky (too shaky someimes that it makes me feel dizzy and impatient as well). It somehow depicts of what an individual sees when he/she is walking. When you are walking, you’re vision is not as steady as the camera.
To end up this long discussion and thorough analysis of Kubrador (thorough man jud!), this what makes it different and outstanding.
“Kubrador,” Life is a gamble. The film says it so. It depicts the good and most especially the "bad" side of Filipinos. I quoted the "bad" since I don't really believe that such involvement in jueteng is bad after all. These are people who believe in hopes and of chances. The chance of earning more or simply living in this world without any financial problems at all. It was filmed in such a way that it did not looked like it wanted to preach something or proved anything. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.”
Jeturian made use of quasi-documentary style that made the film more realistic. I based this conclusion from a blogger named Capili.
Well for some of you, you may not appreciate the somehow horror in the movie. But I just like it just the way it is. The ghost, Eric, Amelita's son, was the best part for me. Every time he appeared it made me realize that somehow outside this world, there is someone looking at us-- guarding and watching us over. And that my grandfather who passed away three years ago is still around here on earth (sounds creepy!).
I salute this film. It had proven itself to be worth watching not just here in the Philippines but to the international community. Kudos!
I would love to watch more Indie films. Yes, they are the savior of our dying movies. Directors, actors, script writers, etc. should be able to come up once again with a movie full of quality.
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