Are there any good arthouse-type films from the Phillipines?

Kidlat Tahimik's Perfumed Nightmare springs to mind. Though the late Lino Brocka is the best-known Filipino auteur.

This year's Philippine submission for Best Foreign Film Oscar was Crying Ladies. I haven't seen it, but here's a description:
"Crying Ladies is a warm, gentle comedy set in Manila. One way to ensure enough mourners at a loved one's funeral is to hire a few. Tradition also says tears, no matter whose, assure the deceased’s rise to heaven. With the ranks of professional mourners thinning, three women are offered a job sobbing and wailing at the five-day wake of a Chinese businessman. The job is a much-needed financial boon, especially for the street-smart Stella (Sharon Cuneta) a reformed con artist whose ex-husband has granted her three weeks with their little boy, Bong. Then there is Doray, a.k.a. Rhoda Rivera, a bit player of the ’70s whose life revolves around the glory days of her B-movie career, and religious and naive Choleng, who visits the priest every week to confess her affair with a married man. Their stories offer a warm appreciation of the struggles and dreams of ordinary people in the backstreets of Chinatown."

There is also Ishmael Bernal.

I have long wanted to see some of his work -- but never have run across it being shown anywhere.

It's my understanding that most truly "essential" Filipinoi films are not available on DVD or video -- even unsubtitled.

This would be something that Home Vision Entertainment would probably look into, if we who are interested email them some title suggestions. If I'm not mistaken, either license at home vision dot com or info at home vision dot com will work for that purpose.

Senses of Cinema has 3 articles on Filipino cinema, scroll about halfway down the page at [url=http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/05/34/contents.html
]this link[/url]. Noel Vera has a new book out on Filipino cinema, I saw it in one of the book reviews sections for Film Comment (the issue w/ the Naruse article), though I can't find it on Amazon.

Lino Brocka's "Manila in the Claws of Light" seems to be mentioned quite often.

I haven't seen Perfumed Nightmare, but additionally I would highly recommend another film by the aforementioned Kidlat Tahimik, Turumba.

I'm going to second (or third, or fourth) Kidlat Tahimik's films (esp. Perfumed Nightmare), but I'd also suggest you look outside "arthouse" cinema. The Philippines has an apparently vibrant history of popular cinema dating back to the thirties, an industry that has at various times partially dominated the film distribution in the region. I'd be very curious to hear a little more about that, rather than only those films made for Western film festivals. This is not to disparage those films -- the Tahimik film is very self-consciously a film for (and against) Western arthouse audiences -- but rather to say that there are no doubt a lot of interesting films from the commercial side that might be worth talking about.

Taking off from Leo's cue on Philippine Golden Age, mainstream cinema suggestion, not a "new" actress, but my favorite Filipina actress from 1950s is Rosa Rosal; she was kind of a Sophia Loren both in looks and in choice of roles, usually neorealistic. Her work with filmmaker Lamberto Avellana is definitely worth checking out. Vic Silayan is also a great actor, and one of the first actors from the Visayas region to cross-over into the Tagalog film industry (somthing comparable to, say, a Bengali actor crossing over into Hindi films).

Another filmmaker definitely worth checking out is Manuel Conde who made epic films (in the true sense of the word) in the 1940-1950s. Genghis Khan is a pretty amazing film, even by today's standards.

I personally didn't care for Perfumed Nightmare, but I also saw a version that used non-sync sound and voiceover. I don't know if this is really how the film was shot, but it was a little too Borom Sarret (by Ousmane Sembene) in strategy, that it lost the "inventiveness" credentials that are often attached to this film, for me anyway.

I've seen a couple of Mike De Leon films, Blink of an Eye (liked a lot) and Third World Country (didn't like), but I haven't seen his "big" films. He seems very self-consciously film school to me, although that's neither good or bad, just a bit too much style over substance in some cases, I think.

Same situation with Lino Brocka, I've seen a few of his minor films, but not his major ones. He does strike me as being on the melodramatic side though.

Lav Diaz has been getting a bit of press for Evolution of a Filipino Family too (I believe it was in Cinemascope last year). Haven't seen this one, but Rob Davis from Errata had good things to say about it, even without seeing it though the end (scheduling conflict).

To be honest, one of things that I find problematic about any discussion of Filipino films is that most information that crosses internationally is also pretty much penned by a small handful of native critics, it's second hand, and I don't know that I can trust their taste. We can only take it on face value these are the films that we should want to see. I don't agree with that pre-filtering.

How do you guys get to see these films? I have been trying to see some filipino cinema, especially the Brocka films like Manilla in the claws of light, insiang, and jaguar, but I can't find a place to get them or see them. I live in nyc by the way. If anyone knows a good resource I would really appreciate the help.

I saw Perfumed Nightmare at NYU -- just last week in fact -- but that doesn't really help you unless you're a student. You might try the NYPL, but I haven't looked into their stock of Filippino films at all. Also, there's likely a Filiippino enclave somewhere in the city where you might pick something up, but one can only guess about subtitles and such.

This is the version that I saw (and liked a lot). I think it's probably the only translated version available, but I think the post-synch is actually quite clever (and funny, and intentional). There's something in Tahimik's speaking for everyone in the film that says a lot about traditional ethnographic film practice. It's also the source of much of the comedy in the film -- like the pseudo-American gumball machine magnate. And it's another layer of the film's sleight of hand, making Kidlat seem more primitive and naïve than he actually is. It makes the film sort of like Trinh Minh-ha with a sense of humor.

Incidentally, Imaginasian had a Filipino Film Festival this past summer, and included Mario Ohara's You Are Weighed in the Balance But Are Found Wanting. It's worth checking occasionally to see if they make an annual event of it.

acquarello, I'm curious about this comment. I take it this is something you find to be particularly a problem with Filipino cinema. It seems to me that it happens to some extent with every national cinema. I wonder what conditions make Filipino cinema extra-susceptible to such tendencies.

There's a bit of a resurgence lately in pinoy cinema. I highly recommend the two recent films by Auraeus Solitos, THE BLOSSOMING OF MAXIMO OLIVEROS and TULI. The former won at the Montral Film Fest (the Serge Losique one), and the latter won at Cinemalaya. Both will be having their theatrical release in the Philippines very soon.

Though it has gotten mixed reviews, I also thought Brilliante Mendoza's THE MASSEUR has merit. He's also finishing up a new film right now.

As for Lav Diaz, BATANG WEST SIDE is also higly recommended, though it's short (at 5+ hours).

I'm not a big fan of Khavn de la Cruz's stuff - too much Miike worshipping for my taste.

Sorry for the late response, I'm just getting back from the Norwegian cinema series. No, you're right, it's probably endemic of several national cinemas particularly where their film archives are close to non-existent. Filipino cinema is just something that I personally had quite a few "trustworthy" recommendations from expatriates who lived in the country from the 1940s to the mid 1970s, and their recommendations (mostly mainstream national cinema) are nothing like what people like Noel Vera are writing about (which is mostly on a handful of independent filmmakers). In addition, I've even been able to contact some people who had worked in these productions only to find out that prints for these films probably don't exist anymore. So in that sense, I find it frustrating in that not only is there no effort to preserve these films, but that even the local critics seem to either be unaware of, or choose not to champion these more mainstream films. To me, the approach is something like internationally promoting the Wakamatsus and Masumuras over the Ozus and Mizoguchis - it's fine only if someone else is covering those more "fundamental" national filmmakers, which no one seems to be.

Or perhaps more like promoting Ozu and Mizoguchi over Nikkatsu action films? It seems to me like a fairly clear case of gatekeeping on the part of Western critics who are more interested in international art cinema than local popular cinemas. This is a prevalent practice in the case of many (if not, to some extent, all) studies of national cinemas, but one that seems to be changing a bit now that the very concept of national cinemas is itself receding.

That said, I wonder if there is any greater accessibility to Filipino cinema in Spanish-language film literature.

Well, the (loose) Nikkatsu equivalent would be something like J.E. Productions, which produced those films that Joseph Estrada starred in. The films that I was thinking of were from LVN Pictures, which were more known for quality dramas, like Avellana's Anak Dalita (with Rosa Rosal).

This article provides a decent primer on where people like Lamberto Avellana and Manuel Conde fit in.

There was an article by Dave Kehr on 10/10 about recent Pinoy cinema on DVD releases of which Noel Vera writes on his website:

"And I should mention a new company, Cinefilipino, dedicated to distributing Unitel films and Filipino classics in the United States, whose DVD releases had been reviewed recently by the New York Times' Dave Kehr. Their titles--all subtitled, though I can't vouch for the quality of the film transfer--include the aforementioned Manila by Night, Macho Dancer and Relayson, Lino Brocka's Ina, Kapatid, Anak (Mother, Sister, Daughter), plus an intriguing one by Mario O'Hara: The Fatima Buen Story, a true life tabloid story given a gothic flavor by one of the finest filmmakers in the industry."

Ever since reading Lee Server's Asian Pop Cinema book, I've been interested in some Filippino titles, but they are never available anywhere near Los Angeles.

Peque Gallaga's "Scorpio Nights" sounded fascinating, and also Brocka's "Manilla in the Claws of Brightness" and "Jaguar." I would love to see Eddie Romero's "This is the Way it Was...How is it Now?" Still, the possibility of these being released anywhere seems slim. I wonder if there are even prints of the films still available? It's a little like the international film silence of a country like Vietnam. There are films being made, but we don't get any access to them. Even bootleg access. It bums me out.

The DVD of Bernal's "Manila By Night" looks dreadful -- but there may be no other option if one wants to see this. "Relasyon" is MUCH better -- about the level of a mediocre video.

O'Hara's "Babae sa Breakwater" looked considerably better -- even in its not really subbed VCD incarnation (which was sent by mistake instead of the supposedly subbed DVD version).

Batang West Side is one of the 40 films in the Notre Musique programme at the Filmmuseum in Vienna currently. Most of the programme looks interesting.

Noel Vera, mentioned several times in this discussion, maintains an excellent blog on Philippine cinema.

Just in case you haven't checked out the link to Vera's blog, Vera mentions Regal Home Entertainment has "Scorpio Nights" on DVD....no subtitles.

I'm Filipino and I actually worked (somewhat) in the Philippine film industry. I'm glad I found this thread.

Criterion should try to look at Philippine cinema and try to restore and give proper DVD treatment to some of our classic films.

Suggestions:

Maynila sa Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Neon) by Lino Brocka
Batch '81 by Mike de Leon
Oro, Plata, Mata by Peque Gallaga
Manila by Night (a.ka. City After Dark) by Ishmael Bernal
Igorota by Cirio H. Santiago

Those are the top 5. They are must-sees.

Two contemporary films of note by two of our best Filipino directors working today which I highly recommend are: The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros by Aureus Solito and Kubrador by Jeffrey Jeturian.