‘Lumayo Ka Nga Sa Akin’ review: Torture by satire

MANILA, Philippines – Bob Ong’s Lumayo Ka Nga Sa Akin just isn’t meant to be made into a film. However, it has happened, and as expected, it is quite bad.

The book is designed to read like a screenplay that stitches together almost every imaginable cliché to sum up everything we should detest about Philippine entertainment but we nevertheless chug up and support. It is supposedly written as the influential author’s critique on commercialist media. Ong’s book however ended up more entertaining than cynical, essentially defeating its noble purpose.

The film mines the book for its comic qualities. Its thrust is satire, but in the process of subjecting Ong’s observations, it shrouds what very little that remains of the essential critique with crass hilarity and star power. In the end, the film is nothing more than a collection of abysmal stories that are crafted with very little ingenuity. It really is quite a pity.

 

Embracing bad filmmaking

The first episode, entitled “Bala sa Bala, Kamao sa Kamao, Satsat sa Satsat,” is about a stereotypical Filipino action hero (Benjie Paras), one who, like many other Filipino action heroes, has had his entire family massacred by nameless goons.

He then ends up falling in love with his socialite leading lady (Candy Pangilinan) on his way to exacting vengeance from an overacting mob boss (Rez Cortez).

It goes without saying that the episode attempts to poke fun at Filipino action films by constructing a nonsensical parody out of genre-specific clichés. Directed by Mark Meily, the episode seems to have surrendered to the idea that there is no way out of the self-imposed pit of bad filmmaking but to fully embrace it.

The result is a short that is just so excruciatingly pointless. There is no timing to the comedy. The film simply parades its punchlines in wild abandon that the humor that is supposedly inherent in its self-absorbed wallowing in awfulness becomes absolutely invisible.

Horror mishmash

Director Andoy Ranay takes charge of the next episode, “Shake, Shaker, Shakest,” about the Catacutans (Herbert Bautista, Maricel Soriano, Shy Carlos, Andrew Muhlach, and JM Ibanez) who end up stuck in a cursed mansion that is home to various Filipino horror film mainstays like the tiyanak (demon baby), the tikbalang (half horse, half man), and other local monstrosities.

The episode, while as self-aware as Meily’s, works slightly better. Perhaps it is because Ranay has a more familiar canvas to play around with, which opens up to jokes and gags that aren’t as dubious or repetitive.

Moreover, where Paras lazily makes funny faces while mouthing lines with the conviction of someone who knows he’s playing a joke, Bautista, Soriano and the rest of the episode’s cast are at least attempting to perform both as characters and as jokes.

Still, the episode’s a drag. There is too much talking and rationalizing, especially when the satirical humor is already quite obvious.

Mean-spirited elitism

Thankfully, Chris Martinez, who directs the last episode entitled “Ang Asawa ni Marie,” is an experienced satirist. He’s written Joyce Bernal’s Kimmy Dora: Kambal sa Kiyeme (2009), Marlon Rivera’s Ang Babae sa Septic Tank (2011) and Antoinette Jadaone’s Beauty in a Bottle (2014), and directed Here Comes the Bride (2010) and The Gifted (2014), all of which are films that expertly combine inane humor with a certain sense of reason. Martinez lends some purpose to his parody of the asinine melodramas that Filipinos are so fond of.

“Ang Asawa ni Marie” is essentially Marimar gone gonzo. Marie (Cristine Reyes) is the barrio (small town) lass who predictably improves her lot in life, allowing her to exact vengeance against her wealthy oppressors (Jackie Lou Blanco and Antoinette Taus).

Martinez does not change the mechanics of the exercise. He is as game as Meily and Ranay to succumb to the inherent repulsiveness of Ong’s pseudo-scripts. However, he at least has the intuition to push the material further for the purpose of being more entertaining than simply torturous.

He is not satisfied with simple exaggerations of acknowledged clichés, but adds value to the humor by relishing on the idea that the entire exercise is grounded on mean-spirited elitism. His short is effective because it knows that the core of Ong’s comedy is that it places its readers in a position where they can laugh at all the unfortunate Filipinos who lap up all the lowbrow jokes without any hint of guilt or self-respect.

“Ang Asawa ni Marie” does not need the parade of punchlines of Meily’s episode or the lengthy explanations of Ranay’s episode because it presumes that its audience knows that it is all a game, not a gag reel or a lecture.

That’s not entertainment

There aren’t enough pleasures in Martinez’s episode to take away the bad taste of Meily and Ranay’s failed experiments. The film remains to be torturous. It is a misguided attempt to capitalize on a book whose very intention is to showcase all the wrongs that have stunted the taste of Filipino viewers.

That’s just not good entertainment. – 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. Profile photo by Fatcat Studios