Engkwentro (2009)

Most movies that I really love only won me over because of their ending. It doesn’t matter much to me if while watching it all I can say is that it’s mediocre. When the ending bowls me over, I will say it’s a favorite. PT Anderson’s Magnolia was just a great movie for me until it ended, and I immediately thought it was a work of genius.

Such is a similar case with Engkwentro (English title: Clash), debut film of 22-year-old Pepe Diokno. It was just OK for me, but then the ending made me gasp. It’s already December 13th, and I finally saw my favorite movie of the year.

The movie opens with words over black: “In the last decade, over 814 people have been killed by state-sponsored vigilantes in the Philippines. Many of the victims were children.” This made me shift in my seat. A movie made by a 22-year-old with political agenda; man, this is going to suck. When I was 22, all I cared about was booze, among other petty things.

But I was wrong. About twenty minutes into the movie, I completely forgot about its political agenda. I sat up, realizing that that entire twenty minutes had been one long take, only to get cut around ten minutes later. I wouldn’t say it was all that effective. It was clumsy at best, but still, the effort was astounding.

I am not a big fan of indie movies shot digitally. The shaky camera work is usually nauseating. Worse, the lighting is compromised. In Engkwentro, when it’s dark, it’s really dark. I’m not sure if Pepe Diokno had a cinematographer, or if the cinematographer just called in sick when they did those shots. And even if this technique is supposed to heighten the realism of it all, all I can feel is annoyance. In the movie’s chase/fight scenes, I was tempted to climb up the projection booth to adjust the contrast, brightness, and perhaps play it all in slow motion.

What makes Engkwentro a rare gem, though, in the world of crappy Pinoy indie movies, is that it doesn’t wallow in shock value. If anything, its supposed “shock value” is nothing but lame. As the camera goes around a labyrinthine slums area, it catches nothing special. Sure, kids are smoking cigarettes and weed, drinking beer, playing around with a gun, but none of those things are anything to be so shocked about. In this day and age when filmmakers are up to their asses pushing the envelope, Pepe Diokno chose to simply sit on it, which isn’t a bad thing. There is something else that the young director wants to push across: a message. Vigilante killing is wrong. And I am reminded of this by the end of the movie, when that hitman whispers to a sobbing young boy, describing how calm and quiet the sea is, right before the cold-blooded gunshot. This one scene, I thought, was chilling.

Best part of watching the movie in SM Cinema 8, though, was waiting for it to start. There were only two of us in the movie house. Apparently, New Moon has more importance to the Filipino moviegoing community that virtually no one bothered to watch Engkwentro. And what do you do when there’s no one else in the theater and what they play is Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face”? Dance, of course.