‘Tumbang Preso’ Review: Tough situations, harsh reality

Oggs Cruz

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‘Tumbang Preso’ Review: Tough situations, harsh reality
'In a way, Oebanda has smartly maneuvered his film to be at least entertaining enough to get his message across, at the cost of oversimplifying the message,' writes movie reviewer Oggs Cruz

Kip Oebanda’s Tumbang Preso is the work of an advocate. Its heart lies in its fervent effort to educate about human trafficking. By creating the story of Carlos (Kokoy de Santos), a high school graduate who was tricked into moving into the city to slave away in a canned sardines factory, Oebanda attempts to emphasize the atrocities that are companion issues to the trafficking problem. 

 

A lot of time is spent in detailing the harsh conditions that Carlos and his co-workers are forced to face. They work long torturous hours under a shrewd and ruthless supervisor (Ronnie Lazaro). Their pay, however, is paltry, only enough for a few sticks of cigarettes, a tube of shampoo, and a cup of noodles.

Liz (Star Orjaliza), the factory’s owner, makes up for her business’ iniquitous labor practices with facile attempts at kindness. 

When the work is done, they are lined up by Vito (Kean Cipriano), Liz’s nephew and the factory’s caretaker, to be counted, and are then locked inside a cramped hall where they sleep without the benefits of both comfort and privacy. This is simply too much to take for Carlos. He thus recruits his younger cousin (Terry Malvar) to stage an escape. 

Tight shots, loose storytelling 

Clearly, Tumbang Preso is a calculated film. Teresa Barrozo’s score enunciates Oebanda’s ambition for suspense. The factory is built from scratch, designed precisely to match Carlo’s escape plan as envisioned in the screenplay. The production design, however, could have strayed away from the stylized to the more real, if only to punctuate the inhumanity of the kids’ living conditions. 

Oebanda endeavors to achieve a look that matches his characters’ plight. He thus recruits tight shots that emphasize the crowded confines of their present sordid lives.

He bathes a lot of scenes in distinct red, perhaps to manufacture visual suspense, or to complete the metaphor that these poor kids are no different from the sardines that they themselves tightly squeeze into tin cans. 

DARK, DESPERATE. The situation is not good for anyone inside the factory. Screengrab from YouTube

The tight shots leave very little space to depict action, forcing Oebanda to rely on Carlo Manatad’s creative and functional editing to do much of the storytelling. The consistency in the visual style, while commendable, since it signals a filmmaker who is unafraid to take risks, poses the problem of confusing viewers.

By limiting what his film’s audience actually sees, all for the sake of the repetitive metaphor of people being trapped and imprisoned against their will, Oebanda denies them of truly fathoming his narrative. Oebanda has become too busy both manufacturing tension and championing his film’s relevance that he has forgotten his role as a storyteller.

The art in advocacy 

Advocates tend to lecture. It comes with the mission to inform and educate. However, when the advocacy is done through any form of art, it often either sticks out like a sore thumb because of its blatancy or becomes overwhelmed by style.

In Tumbang Preso, Oebanda is extremely careful in not crossing the line to either becoming too preachy or too lax. Sadly, Oebanda’s tracks are simply too obvious. There are didactic parts are too flagrant, inserted into portions of the plot via conversations are just awkward within the context of the scene. 

The characters, most especially the antagonists played by Lazaro and Orjaliza, are too stereotypically portrayed as flat-out evil, shutting out any notion of humanity to characters that could have been deeper, or at the very least, less predictable. Of course, it’s not that simple.

In the can 

Tumbang Preso conveniently does away with the complexities of its issue. Complications are not cinematic. They do not belong in a film that mixes genre conventions with advocacy. In a way, Oebanda has smartly maneuvered his film to be at least entertaining enough to get his message across, at the cost of oversimplifying the message.

SEEING RED. Elements of the film echo the children's difficult situation. Screengrab from YouTube

If Tumbang Preso’s goal is to simply expose the horrors of human trafficking to an audience who may or may not be interested in being exposed to the issue, it is quite successful. The film compels you to feel emotions of concern, disgust and anger.

That said, if relevance is the only barometer for quality, then Oebanda’s debut work has it in the can. The truth of the matter is that the both the film’s excesses and deficiencies make it less compelling than the advocacy it proudly champions. – Rappler.com 

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ ‘Tirad Pass.’ Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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