Pugilist

Tattooed gangster

As Tikoy put it he grew up in a penitentiary (the Davao Penal Colony, or Depacol, the place his father was jail auditor) studying the way to field from one of many veteran convicts. Together with his six different brothers, all of them sporting shorts as an alternative of lengthy pants and talking in a humorous Tagalog accent as an alternative of on a regular basis Visayan, they attracted the eye and mock of all the opposite children, not essentially beginning fights however ending them wherever they went. Tikoy’s ambition in life was easy: to get a tattoo, and be a gangster; he ended up working briefly in Hollywood, then coming again to the Philippines to turn into one of many best filmmakers within the trade. 

You may say his youth in Davao was the foundation of Tikoy’s take-no-prisoners perspective. He performed the sport of kiss-ass poorly; he may very well be charming when he wished, however had little endurance for the incompetent or mediocre. When his debut function Boatman (1984) grew to become a smash hit, within the one theater within the Philippines that might display the movie with out cuts (the notorious Manila Movie Middle that Imelda Marcos rapidly erected, on the expense of development employees nonetheless buried in its concrete), the presents got here proper and left to make Boatman 2. Tikoy dug in his heels and stated no; he wished to do one thing utterly different– a collection of well-written well-directed low-budget productions that may make their a refund in cable. He regarded for initiatives; did a documentary on Balweg (Father Balweg, Insurgent Priest); after the 1986 EDSA Revolution tried to develop a biopic on Ninoy Aquino. 

Bagong Bayani (1995)

For nearly ten years I did not hear something concerning the neophyte filmmaker; then the Flor Contemplacion case– a Filipina maid arrested in Singapore for murder– broke, and a docudrama (Bagong Bayani (Unsung Heroine)) made on her life. I might began writing for The Manila Chronicle and attended a screening (within the Cultural Middle of the Philippines (CCP)). The movie impressed me: the low-budget aesthetic, the unfussy unactorly forged (Helen Gamboa as a really human Flor, Chanda Romero as an intense Delia Maga, Irma Adlawan as a heat supportive Virginia Parumog)– documentary footage rounded out the story and gave the movie wider context. 

Tikoy initially deliberate a drama primarily based on footage he shot– interviews of Flor’s household, demonstrations demanding Flor’s release– however occasions leaped forward of him; Flor had been hanged. Viva Movies introduced an enormous film on Flor’s life and recruited the Contemplacion household, who promptly shut Tikoy out; he had little past the interviews and demonstration footage. “Ending that movie was one of the vital troublesome issues I ever did,” he stated. “Each time I’ve a tough time on a undertaking now, I inform myself ‘Regardless of how dangerous issues get, they cannot be as dangerous as after I made Bagong Bayani.”

So he shot what he may from what little he scraped collectively, and when he stepped into the enhancing room he “did not have a important character… did not have a script… did not have half the scenes wanted to inform the story correctly. So I made a decision to base the movie’s construction on The That means of Life.”

I believed I misheard. “You imply Monty Python? And Now For One thing Utterly Completely different?” Tikoy grinned: “Dramatizations linked by documentary footage and the occasional video clip. I completed the movie”

I wrote on the movie and really useful it to the Hong Kong Worldwide Movie Competition. By this level Tikoy was at a low ebb; he had bought property, taken out loans, hocked every little thing he may; he completed first however as a result of Viva’s was a multimillionpeso studio manufacturing (with a minimum of famous person Nora Aunor as Flor) and Tikoy’s was a no-budget docudrama, each theater in Metro Manila refused the latter as a result of they wished the previous (which shock shock did massive boxoffice). Tikoy managed to rearrange screenings on the CCP and the College of the Philippines however that was it; he was caught with a movie that value a great chunk of his private funds with zero prospects. The Hong Kong Movie Competition invite felt like a godsent alternative. 

(Or so Tikoy stated; after all it is potential he was being form, because the movie screened in Fribourg the week earlier than Hong Kong (tho invites and screenings are inclined to observe a schedule all their very own) however in lieu of stronger opposite proof I will go together with what he instructed me)

Segurista (1996)

Name it a pivot, or a suggestion Tikoy could not refuse, however the filmmaker’s subsequent undertaking was with the aforementioned Viva Movies. Segurista (Lifeless Positive) is an erotic noir about an insurance coverage saleswoman who at night time doubled as a GRO (Visitor Relations Officer) at a high-class karaoke bar. Aspiring capitalist, Karen (Michelle Aldana) making use of the idea of synergy makes use of her late-night job to fulfill rich males, promoting them life insurance coverage and amassing fats commissions. Good idea, and so logical one wonders why it hasn’t been completed earlier than (seems it has: the story is predicated on a case that reportedly occurred in Hong Kong). 

Tikoy typically maintained that his movies mix two tales in a single: Boatman was about toreros and the boys guiding canoes down the Pagsanjan rapids; Segurista was about 90s Asian prosperity full with greenglassed skyscrapers and pastel nightclubs, and concerning the survivors of the 1992 Mt. Pinatubo eruption. The latter calamity is what drives Karen to enterprise into the massive metropolis and do what she must do– once more Tikoy uncovering tales nobody else cared about, and retelling them as style melodramas.

Collaborators

Tikoy has labored with gifted folks over the years– Nap Jamir, Yadi Sugandi, Jun Dalawis, Ely Cruz, Romulo Araojo, and Romy Vitug to call some cinematographers; Jesse Lasaten, Nonong Buencamino, Noel Espenida, Jaime Fabregas, and Joey ‘Pepe’ Smith to call some musicians/composers. He approached Jose ‘Pete’ Lacaba to put in writing 5 of his options, presumably as a result of he favored Lacaba’s lean and centered method. The director appeared to exit of his solution to discover writers: Alfred Yuson, Rafael Ma. Guerrero, Amado Lacuesta, Ricky Lee, Lualhati Bautista, Rey Ventura, Roy Iglesias have all at one level or one other written for him– even me, at one level (a lot to my shock). Extra on that later. 

Arguably Tikoy’s secret weapon was his editor, Marina Medina-Bhunjun, who has been with him since Boatman. It is a distinctive relationship: Marina is concerned as early because the script growth stage, serving to make clear what’s essential to the story and what, if issues do not work, will be reduce out. Checking her filmography she’s directed shorts and documentaries however edits just for Tikoy, which is each fascinating and a pity; name her Tikoy’s Thelma Schoonmaker– I think about Marina among the finest editors alive– and surprise what affect she may need had if she have been ever prepared to work with anybody else.

Rizal sa Dapitan (1997)

The yr 1998 was the centennial of the Filipino proclamation of independence, and the query on of us’ thoughts was: the place was the biopic of Jose Rizal? Rizal looms over Philippine historical past, a mix Victor Hugo and Dr. Solar Yat-sen, by turns mental, novelist, political activist, and educator. Additionally heretic and harmful subversive, based on Spanish colonial administration, who executed him by firing squad in Bagumbayan Subject in 1896.  

Tikoy approached me with a proposal: a movie on Rizal’s years of exile in Dapitan, with Albert Martinez as Rizal. Tikoy considered it as an train in historic mythmaking, not not like what Tsui Hark did with Wong Fei-hung– a As soon as Upon a Time in Dapitan when you like. The concept excited me (Tikoy had that impact on folks); I did what analysis I may, drew up a timeline, and truly hammered out a whole script the place Rizal establishes a clinic and a college for boys, disarms a would-be murderer with arnis sticks, meets and falls for Josephine Bracken (Amanda Web page) who’s being menaced by her lecherous guardian George Taufer (Paul Holmes), makes an attempt to exorcise a boy possessed by a demon (he insists the kid is a sufferer of hypnotic suggestion and makes use of counter-suggestion to deal with him). 

I might wish to assume it a wild and loopy script worthy of Tsui Hark and Jet Li and never some clumsy try at epic moviemaking but– Tikoy should have taken a have a look at it, famous the awkward Tagalog, tallied up the price range concerned, and requested Pete Lacaba for a rewrite. 

Ah nicely. I received partial credit score (story and extra dialogue). A handful of strains survive– largely involving Josephine Bracken and George Taufer (superbly delivered by Web page and Holmes)– plus a portion of the movie’s closing titles. Right here endeth my screenwriting profession. 

I used to be barely concerned on the manufacturing side– nicely, I visited one set the place they shot some indoor scenes, and made a quick cameo as one among Rizal’s sufferers (you may spot me across the twelve minute mark clutching my injured hand, ready to be handled). I did hear Tikoy speaking concerning the different Rizal manufacturing, the P100 million biopic financed by GMA Studios and directed by Mike de Leon, starring Philippine heartthrob Aga Mulach. If that manufacturing completed first it might dominate the theater screens and shut out ours, similar factor that occurred to Bagong Bayani.

Tikoy continued filming; the GMA manufacturing saved a good lid by itself manufacturing, lifting stated lid lengthy sufficient to current a three-minute trailer. The footage regarded spectacular: Mulach in bowler and lengthy coat, the digital camera gliding by way of the superbly lit forests of Dapitan–

Dapitan? Not simply Tikoy, all of us have been beside ourselves. Was de Leon going to inform the story of Rizal’s Dapitan exile– our story we like to think about it, tho we knew better– as nicely? He definitely had the cash and sources.

However Tikoy’s manufacturing was too far alongside to cease and even pause. Rumor has it that de Leon did not like wrestling with a P100 million manufacturing and left; that the three or so minutes  used within the trailer was the solely footage that was really shot. Tikoy received the race once more, and once more it was a combined victory– it screened on the Manila Movie Competition in June however an unstated apply of theaters is that they typically dropped a poorly performing movie in favor of a extra fashionable one and this, not being a comedy a softcore flick or a big-name star car, was not a direct draw. 

The movie did earn extra after successful massive within the native awards, and had a second life in colleges and the international competition circuit, finally changing into a staple throughout Independence Day holidays. 

As for the movie itself– arduous to guage objectively on account of my proximity however I believed Lacaba did a tremendous job telling the story of Rizal’s exile in a sober logical method, whereas Romy Vitug and Nap Jamir deftly employed island mild (Tikoy insisted on location capturing) and seaside air for lyricism. Albert Martinez was an intense Rizal and Amanda Web page an understated in the end poignant Bracken; I can think about the best epic manufacturing with Rizal swinging an arnis stick in a single hand, spraying a bottle of holy water within the other– however this was the simple indie Rizal that the Philippines wanted first, earlier than extra fanciful variations can observe.

That was the excessive level of my involvement in Tikoy’s movies. He went on to do the intriguing Tatsulok (Triangle, 1998), mainly Insiang instructed from the mom’s standpoint; the unfinished but fascinating Biyaheng Langit (Paradise Specific, 2000), one other double narrative involving each high-stakes gamblers and street-level pickpockets; and Tatarin (Summer time Solstice, 2001) a classy adaptation of the Nick Joaquin story– however by then I might gone on to play the admittedly extra comfy position of outsider wanting in, sussing out the filmmaker’s strikes and motives not from insider anecdotes however from proof on the massive display. 

Filmmaker

After I moved to the USA in 2003 I solely heard of the later productions– www.XXX.com, Manila Kingpin (with accompanying tales of manufacturing points, upshot of which last reduce had been taken away from Tikoy); and Tragic Theater, about (of all issues) the unquiet useless that haunted the Manila Movie Middle, the place Tikoy began his profession. 

I can not choose the post-2003 movies, not having seen them for one cause or one other; of the three earlier (1998 – 2001) I liked the output however cannot in good acutely aware say they have been higher than his first 4 (1985 – 1997) when he coated a variety of genres and visible kinds, from erotic noir (Boatman, Segurista) to docudrama (Bagong Bayani) to historic (Rizal sa Dapitan). 

Together with Lino Brocka, Tikoy did socially acutely aware melodramas stiffened by lowkey noir camerawork and a powerful verite really feel. In a cinema infamous for its slack and arrhythmic movies he (with the assistance of Mirana in each the writing and enhancing) insisted on conserving his briskly paced– of the nice Filipino filmmakers solely Celso advert Castillo, Mike de Leon, Mario O’Hara, and Gerry de Leon featured comparably taut enhancing. 

Goals

Tikoy was a stressed soul, ever in seek for the following nice Filipino story to be instructed, typically with others following in his wake: when Boatman instructed the story of toreros, Personal Present and Reside Present quickly adopted; after Bagong Bayani got here The Flor Contemplacion Story; after Rizal sa Dapitan got here Jose Rizal, Bayaning Third World (Third World Hero), and Sisa. He would inform me of initiatives he dreamt of doing: not simply the biopic on Ninoy Aquino however on first Philippine president Emilio Aguinaldo; a picaresque tragicomedy on Pedro Flores, inventor of the yo-yo; a mananangal (batwinged vampire) nanny caring for kids in upper-class Los Angeles (the movie could be titled Darkish Maid); a undertaking involving Dolphy– the Philippines’ King of Comedy– working as a housekeeper within the Marcos family (a satire, after all). 

Tikoy dreamed of a thriving unbiased filmmaking trade and film-literate viewing public, and based the Cinemanila Movie Competition to develop each. Named after Brocka’s short-lived manufacturing outfit, the competition showcased movies from around the globe and promoted native unbiased filmmakers– it ran from 1999 to round 2013, outlasting its namesake by years.

Tikoy additionally dreamed of nurturing unbiased filmmakers not simply in Metro Manila however in provincial cities like Tacloban, Cebu, Davao. The competition carried out outreach applications and singled out movies with this in thoughts, and judging from among the titles honored– Brillante Mendoza’s Manoro; Remton Siega Zuasola’s Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria (Eleuteria’s Dream); Sherad Anthony Sanchez’s Imburnal— provincial filmmaking has come a good distance in realizing that dream. 

Tikoy at first look was a rough-looking man stuffed with tough discuss however like his movies the abrasive floor belied a delicate heart– his works (Biyaheng Langit, Rizal sa Dapitan, Boatman) typically featured marginalized protagonists however a few of his finest (Tatarin, Tatsulok, Segurista, and above all Bagong Bayani) featured ladies. It was as if in his everlasting wrestle to champion the underdog– each in movie and in actual life– he acknowledged ladies as the final word underdogs, and paid tribute to their power and endurance. Considering of that younger boy in shorts and humorous accent loudly difficult all comers, I wish to think about the boy studying regardless of himself to turn into a nurturer and defender– that as a result of he knew the way to rise up for himself he made a deliberate selection to face up for others, inform their story, assist them develop the talents to inform tales of their very own. Paalam Tikoy; you’ll be missed.