TIFF 2022 LEONOR WILL NEVER DIE Ang Pagbabalik ng Kwago: Mabuhay ang Sinehan!

 Leonor Will Never Die closed at the 2022 Midnight Madness program at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was a film I did not know anything about which is one of the great aspects of a film festival. You take a seat, the lights dim and go on an unexpected and unknown ride. And what a ride Leonor Will Never Die is. The film is written and directed by Martika Ramirez Escobar.

The title character is Leonor Reyes.  She was a successful screen writer. Shelia Francisco brings Leonor to life with great pathos and passion befitting an aging writer. The screenwriter's days are spent slipping in and out of reverie. She has a fondness for action movies and watches them as much as she can. She also forgets to pay the electricity bill. 

A freak accident sends Leonor to the hospital. The doctor explains her Leonor's condition to Leonor's son Rudie, "Rudie, you see, sometimes, we are awake, other times, asleep. But sometimes, you can be between both. That is called conscious sleep or hypnagogia. That's is the state your mother is now. Right now we don't know how to wake her up, or if she will wake at all. At least we're sure she's alive." Rudie, "How do we wake her up?" The Doctor responds, "You can't wake up someone who is not asleep." It is so with this story as well. A theme of the film is lines. The line between reality and fantasy, life and afterlife, sleep and awake.

The art form of cinema can really deliver on straddling the fictionalized "real world" of the movie and slide effortlessly into a fantasy world the characters of the film drift into. I have always gravitated to films that are movies within movies, mise en aybme. Anguish, Adaptadtion, Videodrome come to mind. This is something seen a lot in horror movies or drama. To see reality and fantasy blend so well in the context of action film was magnificent. Scenes that are exceptionally strong in Leonor Will Never Die are where the reality of the story run into the fantasy action film that Leonor is engaging with. The movie is also a love letter to Filipino action movies from years gone by.

I especially love the scenes of creating the screenplay for the movie within the movie. Ang Pagbabalik Ng Kwago. The Return of Kwago. Depicting writing in a movie is not an easy feat to pull off. Martika's imagination and innovation soar as the film revels in the act of writing A scene where Leonor is simultaneously typing and acting out what is she writing is a sheer joy.

Step back, this where another fight scene happens.

A film is created by a great many folks, I want to also acknowledge the editor Lawrence S. Ang. Pulling together a film that moves within it's own fantasy and reality takes a keen talent to succeed. The look of the reality and the action sequences created by cinematographer Carlos Mauricio are also wonderful.

There is something to be said or in this case, to be written about what the film watcher brings to watching a movie. I watched the film on what is my mother's first birthday after her passing in March. Watching this movie on this day, there was a lot that hit me a lot more as I engaged with the film. Leonor Will Never Die is a film that addresses grief. The movie celebrates the joy and healing in the act of artistic creation. It is also a testament to strong material. Good screenplays never age.Mabuhay ang Sinehan!

After watching Leonor you have to ask yourself why are we not seeing more grandmothers kicking ass in cinema. Ending a story can sometimes prove difficult. Getting a great ending though is uplifting. Leonor Will Never Die, what a great ending to Midnight Madness 2022.

. The screenwriter's days are spent slipping in and out of reverie. She has a fondness for action movies and watches them as much as she can. She also forgets to pay the electricity bill. 

A freak accident sends Leonor to the hospital. The doctor explains her Leonor's condition to Rudie, "Rudie, you see, sometimes, we are awake, other times, asleep. But sometimes, you can be between both. That is called conscious sleep or hypnagogia. That's is the state your mother is now. Right now we don't know how to wake her up, or if she will wake at all. At least we're sure she's alive." Rudie, "How do we wake her up?" The Doctor responds, "You can't wake up someone who is not asleep." It is so with this story as well. A theme of the film is lines. The line between reality and fantasy. Life and afterlife. Sleep and awake.

The art form of cinema can really deliver on straddling the fictionalized "real world" of the movie and slide effortlessly into a fantasy world the characters of the film drift into. I have always gravitated to films that are movies within movies, mise en aybme. Anguish, Adaptadtion, eXistenZ come to mind. Scenes that are exceptionally strong in Leonor Will Never Die are where the reality of the story run into the fantasy action film that Leonor is engaging with. The movie is also a love letter to Filipino action movies from years gone by.

I especially love the scenes of creating the screenplay for the movie within the movie. Ang Pagbabalik Ng Kwago. The Return of Kwago. Depicting writing in a movie is not an easy feat to pull off. Martika's imagination and innovation soar as the film revels in the act of writing A scene where Leonor is simultaneously typing and acting out what is she writing is a sheer joy.

Step back, this where another fight scene happens.

A film is created by a great many folks, I want to also acknowledge the editor Lawrence S. Ang. Pulling together a film that moves within it's own fantasy and reality takes a keen talent to succeed. The look of the reality and the action sequences created by cinematographer Carlos Mauricio are also wonderful.

There is something to be said or in this case, to be written about what the film watcher brings to watching a movie. I watched the film on what is my mother's first birthday after her passing in March. Watching this movie on this day, there was a lot that hit me a lot more as I engaged with the film. Leonor Will Never Die is a film that addresses grief. The movie celebrates the joy and healing in the act of artistic creation. It is also a testament to strong material. Good screenplays never age. Mabuhay ang Sinehan!

Ending a story can sometimes prove difficult. Getting a great ending though is uplifting. Leonor Will Never Die, what a great ending to Midnight Madness 2022.

TIFF 2022: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT Reflections by Robert Aaron Mitchell

"War is hell." This a statement that has been attributed to General William Tecumseh Sherman. Sherman a Union General in America's civil war, this counties bloodiest war to date. War is indeed hell. Since the beginning of cinema there has been the war film. An entire genre of movie that has striven to convey General Sherman's sentiments.

Edward Berger's All Quiet on the Western Front is third film bearing the title of Erich Maria Remarque's novel, Im Westen nichts Neuces. There was the original 1930 film directed by Lewis Milestone which sees Lew Ayres play Paul. The 1979 TV movie directed by Delbert Mann that has Richard Thomas play the lead character of Paul. 

Edward Berger has said that in regards to the previous cinematic iterations of All Quiet he just ignored them but was very aware of the historic presence of Lewis Milestone's milestone film. "I ignored it. Ascribe to the idiocy, maybe. We just went for it. While writing it and story-boarding it, I sometimes thought, "What the hell did I do this?" What big shoes to fill." Going into Berger's iteration the 1930s film indeed is on ones mind entering the theater. 

Sitting down to write about this film or any well made war-film, it is helpful to have the thesaurus handy. Harrowing, brutal, barbarous, inhuman, harsh, callous, merciless, atrocious, inhumane, horror, senseless are words to have at the ready.  

The film opens on a beautiful mountain surrounded by forest. The sun is rising. A fox and her kits huddle together for warmth. It is quiet. Looking upwards through the forest to the sky. Looking downward to a snow covered ground that is strewn with dead soldiers. Gunshots are fired intermittently. Blood from the dead are flung upwards. The camera movies into the trenches, through the barbed wire. Running through fields, no man's land through gunshots and explosions. Mud and dirt covered soldiers. War is hell.

Following the efforts and journey of recycling and reusing bloody uniforms taken from dead soldiers. The washing of the clothes in a giant bloody, soapy tub to stitching the fabric back together in a room full of women working on sewing machines. The machine of war continues waiting for new recruits to get ground up and minced by bullets and bombs. There they are. As a German leader says, "Not children but soldiers" but they are baby faced children. They are laughing and excited, the folly of youth, more gristle for the machine.

The great ominous music composed by Volker Bertelman belies where this story is going. The audience knows where this story is going. The German children now recruited soldiers are still excited unbeknownst to them where their stories are going. James Friend and his team do an exquisite job making the brutal, beautiful. That is the thing with the war film. So many times great film making technique is employed to hammer home the war is hell motif. The better the technique the more a film can unwittingly glorify war. Of course with the iconic title the novel and previous iterations are very much a part of this films talking points. However it is Elem Kilmov's Come and See that I for one was thinking about more as I watched Berger's film. There is also the other recent cinematic look at WWI through the direction of Sam Mendes and the non-stop camera of Roger Deakins.

Of course All Quiet on the Western Front is harrowing, brutal, barbarous, inhuman, harsh, callous, merciless, atrocious, inhumane, horror, senseless. It is an extremely well made film. How many times can one watch a well made film about war. Is the message not clear by now. 

Paul the lead character in the film has no real backstory. He is just another mud caked, blood splattered face that ages over the runtime of the film. We see the grisly details other war films do not focus on. The film succeeds in the details. A close up of shell cases rattling around the wooden bed of a military truck. A soldier's boots swinging off the back.  The landscape shots are breathtaking. The reusing of bloody uniforms. Paul rolling over dead soldiers and pulling off their dog tags. Recognizing one of his friends. The distant camera. The sad, melodic music. The endless horror surrounded by natural beauty.It is difficult to have an audience feel the cold of winter. This film achieves that. 

As Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Brühl, Inglorious Basterds) the head of the German delegation is racing towards armistice and proposing a ceasefire during negotiations with the French the men we have followed from the beginning of the film have just arrived in the trenches of the front line. A General knows that the war is ending and refuses to give up any ground to the French. The French hold out a pen to sign the armistice agreement. A body lies in a pool of mud. Another body on barbed wire. The soldiers continue to run towards gunfire. The film is also about class. We see soldiers dying in grisly, brutal ways. Others are barely surviving. The higher up military people are dining in grand dining rooms, eating finely prepared meals, traveling in luxury on trains.

As Edward Berger noted, "Unfortunately this type of movie is always relevant." and as I said during my write up about Causeway, the cost we expect each generation sent to war to pay is far too great and the burden they carry far too heavy. Edward Berger's All Quiet on the Western Front is this generation's All Quiet. The Netflix version. In twenty years there will be another version and in that, there lies the tragedy.