REVIEW: Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank

SPOILER ALERT! If you are the type of a review reader who doesn’t like his movie being spoilt to him, DON’T READ THIS. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.

I walked out of the Cultural Center of the Philippines in trance. It was the movie’s Gala Night and I had just seen Eugene Domingo, a star in the movie I had just watched, in person—that’s kind of a personal thing (and an entirely new writing for that); and had also viewed a movie so entertaining, so challenging, that even today I can still remember the very experience I had inside the theatre so clearly as if I was still there.

ANG BABAE SA SEPTIC TANK (THE WOMAN IN THE SEPTIC TANK, which we will refer to as ABSST through out this review) offers something you don’t often see on mainstream cinema—which goes along with Cinemalaya 7’s festival theme for this year (ABSST is a competing festival entry in this year’s Cinemalaya Film Festival), See the Unseen.

It tells the story of three young filmmakers with “misguided ambitions”, according to the words of the writer Chris Martinez. All they want is to make the movie with the right story and the right person playing the lead role, creating a chemistry that will bring them to various International Film Fests and give them awards. The story they were going to tell was that of a widow, Mila, who out of poverty was forced to sell one of her kids to a pedophile. There goes your plot (or plots): a story unseen in your commercial silver screens.

As the story gets established, you think you’re watching a different kind of story-telling: The usual film script is being narrated as it is written, “Sequence 37, Scene 1, Day” Blah blah blah. It goes on for minutes and you think, ‘Hey, this is a new style!” But if you look into the entire movie and look at it in black and white, you realize that it is your typical film! There’s a beginning and end, there’s conflict, climax, denouement and conflict-resolution. Except: the writing and execution is never-before-seen in local cinema, not even in film festivals—a movie-inside-a-movie type of narration. I admire Chris Martinez for being so innovative in stories he offers in both independent and mainstream film: from 100 (indie film) to Here Comes the Bride (mainstream movie), and now ABSST. You know you’ll see something you’ve never seen before, or maybe you have seen it but it has amazing twists.

I have no questions with the story—this is the life of film making we’re seeing in film. Maybe it was made a little exaggerated—film makers acting like spoiled brats, hateful envy among people in their industry, a car being chopped up in minutes by thugs, a star making impossible demands—but that’s why it’s so darn entertaining! On the other hand, “truth” is splashed all over the screen every now and then. Maybe people who can relate feel a little heart-pang every so often as they watch the film; as they say, truth hurts.

The dialogues are witty, to the point that the exchange of lines among characters make you snort, giggle, laugh out loud or roll on the floor intermittently as you listen to each person. But if try to interpret it another way, and say that you ‘read’ between the lines, something else is may be said in between the punch lines and jokes. Whether or not the people who made this movie possible say “we’re not making a statement in this film,” they inevitably had as people had their own interpretations about the story. They told, as Martinez said, a collection of their experiences as filmmakers, it had hit some of us down to the bones—whether our life stories had anything to do with filmmaking or not.

So, we also heard during Atty. Joji Alonso say during the podium part that as amazed as she was with this script (so is this review writer of ABSST), she also wondered how this movie will be executed in reel. This question was answered when grinding finished and the final output made its world premiere.

My awe goes out to Marlon N. Rivera (whose background involves advertising, flower arranging and NOW directing!) who visualized this story by Martinez and painted the script on silver screen. It is as if he went through the stress of directing ten different movies all at once—and no, I don’t exaggerate. See the movie for yourself. Different styles and film treatments were showcased in this one-and-a-half hour film. For a debut film directing, Rivera did a really good job.

Of course, the painter and the canvass are nothing without the paint. Although it is not a typical indie film casting—Kean Cipriano, JM de Guzman, Cai Cortez and especially Eugene Domingo, not to mention cameo appearances by other stars such as Cherry Pie Picache, Joan Quintas and more—their performances were laudable. My hands go out to Cai (who played Jocelyn) who had no lines at all, but delivered a “As Is, Where Is” acting (for definition of this key phrase, watch the movie). Even in their most brief appearances, Cherry Pie Picache and Mercedes Cabral (an indie film star) delivered what their roles called from them—to play Mila and themselves. Kean and JM, though new faces in movies, are not new to acting, having performed in teleseryes. Though not much acting was required on their part, girls and gays alike screeched every now and then when they were shown on screen. And well after the screening during the meet and greet with the performers.

Finally, I am to commend the outstanding performance of Eugene Domingo in this film, who had been an indie film regular, and now a famed mainstream performer. Martinez said it would have been impossible to find another actress who could execute such a role. True enough, Domingo displayed her versatility as a performer through this movie—she played Mila in different styles and genres, and also acted as her ‘upgraded’ self. Watch out for her “by the book” acting styles in the movie—a personal favorite!

As I said in the beginning of this discourse, ABSST is both entertaining and challenging. Though from time to time, some people might find themselves out of the loop with the jargon that the characters used in their dialogues, it’s a movie-lover’s treat to himself as he peeks in the life of filmmaking—if he has no idea how it is done. And (probably) filmmakers (or aspirants), as well as actors, might have also seen themselves somewhere along the story. In line with Cinemalaya 7’s theme, this movie is successful in telling the truth and showing what is usually ‘unseen’ by many of us in the world of filmmaking. Yes, I did walk out of that art center in a trance, apart from my apparent idolatry of Eugene Domingo (I repent), it was because my status quo was shaken by this fascinating tale of misguided ambitions and ‘romanticizing poverty’.


5.0 out 5.0
It's perfect.