Brave, new, digital world
ZOETROPE By Juaniyo Arcellana
The Philippine STAR 01/23/2006

When we set sail for Carthage we realized that there was no Carthage nor were we on any boat, but on a jeepney going south and in our canvass pants pockets was a DVD copy of Rigodon, the latest film by presently New York-based Sari Dalena and Keith Sicat. We’d read and heard much about it, this American nightmare post-9/11, in the newspapers and through text message, by word of mouth in the oddest situations and drinking places.

From La Salle teacher Marj Evasco: "Walang script according to Sari at the open forum. Or if there was, it kept changing every day for the duration of the 11-day shoot. I found it too unstructured. Parang pastiche of Pinoy-in-America portraits leaning heavily on Bulosan and Villa."

Okay. When I texted back if I should try to catch the UP premiere of Rigodon, Marj said by all means yes, so we could discuss it further.

From Jon Red, at his mini-festival in Roundeye Glass Adriatico: "I liked it. Sort of like Lav Diaz meets Nic Deocampo. That’s why I invited her here para makaganti ako."

From critic Iskho Lopez also at Roundeye while shooting the crap with other kibitzers in late night Malate, having come from a screening of Rigodon at the CCP: "Maganda. It’s an art film. I felt as if I had just walked into an art gallery and the paintings were moving. Our own independent digital filmmakers can learn something from (Keith and Sari). Malinis, pulido ang pagkagawa. They know what to say and how to say it."

From Ruben Lee, brother of Rox: "Okay naman, pero parang Lav Diaz pa rin."

From where I sit, there really are some truths in the separate though not disparate commentaries. Sari now teams up with real life partner Keith for this take on Pinoys in America after the infamous 9/11, a subject not entirely foreign to Dalena, one of whose previous films is Memories of a Forgotten War, this time about the largely undocumented Fil-Am war at the turn of the previous century.

Comparisons with Lav Diaz, best known for his more than 10-hour epic Ebolusyon ng Pamilyang Pilipino, are not unjustified. Rigodon also employs a subtle lyricism in real time, so that it may seem longer than its listed 80 minutes running time. Both Diaz and Dalena/Sicat also cast actors who are veterans in the indie scene: Joel Torre, Chin-Chin Gutierrez and Banaue Miclat.

Descriptions of it being an art film are apt, too, as a number of frames indeed have lighting and composition worthy of framing in a canvas. But the tableaux is never forced or contrived, and sometimes the actors move in and out of the viewfinder.

One viewer also noted that there were hardly any close-ups. My only reaction to that was: just like Buñuel, forefather of surrealism, who abhorred close-ups. It was after all Buñuel who said that when the camera starts dancing, that’s when he walks out of the theater. Call it old school if you will – the camera keeping a respectful distance – but his films alternately had the power to bore you to death or to start riots in moviehouses.

As for Rigodon’s being unstructured, that’s Kidlat Tahimik echoing for you. The beginning of Rigodon in fact quotes Kidlat re Pinoys living in a cocoon of American imperialism, if memory of our DVD copy serves us well.

At midpoint, there is this surreal lyric ménage-a-trois among Torre, Gutierrez and Arthur Acuña, the poet, the devotee and the fighter, respectively in present-day New York.

From what we’ve seen, we can already tell that Rigodon is a rare film, and the viewer who found time to catch it in the various venues it had been playing, from UP to CCP to Conspiracy Garden cafe and back, would have been well rewarded.