By Peter Hempstead
"Cavite" Directed, written,
and edited by Ian Gamazon and Neill dela
Llan Starring Ian Gamazon
"Cavite"
is one of those low-budget (practically no-budget)
films that wins you over not with great acting or
cinematic pyrotechnics, but with sheer grit. It's
guerilla filmmaking at its best.
Ian
Gamazon plays Adam, a young
man who travels home to the Philippines for his
father's funeral and receives a phone call from a
Muslim terrorist group who has kidnapped his
mother and sister. If he wants to see them alive
again, he better do as he's told.
Gamazon and his co-director buddy, Neill
dela Llana, manage to give a
haunting Big Brother quality to the
Tagalog-speaking caller, who sees and hears
everything that Adam does during his labyrinthine
journey through the squalid streets of the town of
Cavite (kah-VEE-tee).
The limits of verisimilitude here are stretched
to the breaking point with the all-seeing,
all-knowing caller. But if you're willing to cut
the writers some slack, the suspenseful narrative
proves captivating.
"Cavite", which is practically a one-man show,
was shot on a shoestring budget and filmed
entirely on handheld camera. The film's settings
are places you're not likely to see again except
in a documentary about the devastating poverty of
the Philippines.
The impromptu feel of the
filming gives one the impression that "Cavite"
could, in fact, also be a documentary. And in part
it is. There's the fetid dump, the depressed
marketplace, the authentic cock fight-- scenes
that the best set crews could never duplicate.
It's a side of the Philippines outsiders rarely
witness.
(As Part of New Directors/New
Films, it played at MoMA,
March 24 2006, Walter
Reade, March 26 2006 and will
be released theatrically in the Fall.)
[courtesy Hargrove Entertainment
Syndicate/Lucky Girl Media]
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