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Lifestyle

Movie review: There’s no justice in Joel Lamangan’s ‘Hustisya’




The Manila of "Hustisya" feels contrived in its filth—it’s a dirty Manila, all right, one you won’t see in travel books or brochures. Yet it doesn’t feel real, either. And that perhaps is the biggest failure of this Joel Lamangan feature.

"Hustisya," a Director’s Showcase entry in this year’s Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival, stars Nora Aunor as Biring, a lowly worker in a widespread human trafficking agency. Aunor serves as the right-hand woman of Vivian (Rosana Roces,) who herself has bigger bosses in the form of corrupt politicians and police officers.

The film begins with Biring navigating a noisy Manila at noon-time, delivering bribes and payments for underage girls and boys who have been told they have a bright future as domestic helpers abroad. In reality, a grim fate awaits the teenagers—as sex workers sold to Japanese syndicates.

Over the film's two-hour length, Biring gets framed for murder, is freed by corrupt lawyers and handlers, assumes the role of her former boss, and, finally, in an ironic full circle, commits actual murder. But while Aunor’s character travels full circle, her story is anything but developed, with no clear motivations for her seemingly arbitrary actions.

Through this all, Biring maintains an almost religious trust in Manila. And she takes it to literal heights, too--offering up prayers scribbled on scraps of paper, she throws money from the bell tower atop City Hall as a perverse form of penance for her sins.

This film is an all too obvious tableau of society’s cancer, or at least, it tries to be. Scene after scene, it features the banality of prostitutes and drug addicts of all kinds in the streets of Manila. Sure, a lot of other films have already done that (and done it with proper use and motivation,) but where this film fails is in the fact that everything, from the street abductions to the mass protests by activists, all feel and look staged.

The social commentary "Hustisya" wishes to delve in, in the form of background scenes and overheard dialogue, will only work if it is actually subtle. Instead, the sloppy sound design made it hard for the viewers to map out the film space. Some minor dialogue—meant to be heard in the periphery of the film—are a step too near or a beat too long. It defeats the purpose of what is supposed to be an overheard whisper that plants ideas in the viewers’ minds and makes them think. Calling to mind the old adage, Lamangan clearly tells and not shows.

Simply put, Aunor is too good for this film, which has so little character development for a movie that hinges on the intersections of peoples’ lives, and their decision-making. In fact, one could go as far as to say "Hustisya" leaves a bad taste in the mouth, since you start the film rooting for Biring, who is presented as a good, if flawed, human being. Instead the film ends in such a way that you begin to question if that glimmer of a soul you saw in the beginning was merely play-acting.  

The penultimate scene was by far the hardest one to sit through--it had Aunor walking trance-like in a (metaphoric?) street where all the bad things in Manila happen. You name it,  it’s there. Rape, murder, public sex, prostitution, and yes, human trafficking. Biring, in her stupor, walks as if unseeing. Then she pauses, looks up, and sees a (painfully mediocre and very obvious) computer-generated image of a full moon, slowly being engulfed by dark clouds.

It’s a metaphor, all right, and one that is forced down the throats of viewers—Biring has gone to the dark side, and whatever good there was in the beginning is completely gone.

There is a thin line between criticizing the justice system and justifying a crime or the actions of a criminal. "Hustisya", never mind its bad sound and imagery, falls flat simply because it did not tell a cohesive story at all. And really, where’s the justice in that? — BM, GMA News

"Hustisya" is one of the entries in this year's Cinemalaya. Click here for screening schedules.
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