Brillante Mendoza

What was the beginning of the project Kinatay? When I was making Slingshot, a feature about small-time crooks, I stumbled upon this police student and he told me about his first criminal experience. I thought there were interesting concepts there: for example the idea that it’s not safe out there, it’s a dangerous world, and what makes it even more dangerous is that it involves people who are supposed to be our allies, our protectors.

Kinatay is not an easy film to see, because of its violent content. Yes, in fact, when I was conceptualizing the story I thought, it’s too ambitious for me to require so much from the audience, because I want them to feel what the character is going through, the horror in his mind. That’s what I want in the audience, and there are some who couldn’t take it, of course. This film is not an entertainment film, the less adventurous and courageous audiences will just get out. I mean, not everybody will go into the cinema and see and feel and smell everything that is going on; if you are sheltered you probably won’t do it, you’ll stay in your room and watch TV and be happy and forget what is going on out there. I want the audiences to stay with the character, to look and think. I want the audiences to be disturbed.

What do you expect about the reception of Kinatay in your country? Philippine audiences are not ready for my kind of films. We have been under the United States so long, exposed to Hollywood; that’s the only kind of cinema that we know, mainstream, Hollywood, melodrama… And we see it only as entertainment, nothing more. You want to see famous actors, their clothes… The Philippines don’t want to reality; they want to stay away from it. They want to see a fancy, beautiful life. But for me, I think it’s a responsibility to make them aware that reality will always stay there. For example with Kinatay, I don’t intend to show it in cinemas or in malls, I intend to show it in universities and schools, explain a little bit about my film. My plan is quite ambitious but I know I have to start somewhere. I want to make the students aware that there is such thing as independent, alternative cinema, which can awake our senses. For me, just being aware is a big achievement, I don’t dream of changing the lives and minds of the Philippine audience. It’s too grand, but I have to start somewhere.
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How do you think your work has changed since The Masseur, your first film? I think it changed a lot, not also my views but also my films. To be honest with you, when I started The Masseur I wanted to be a famous blockbuster director, I wanted to be the first Philippine to have a blockbuster (laughs). But it changes when you experience your film together with the audience. With The Masseur I just wanted to make it right, I was following my heart and my intuition. In fact when I showed it, most of my friends didn’t like it. Of course I felt discouraged and I couldn’t sleep because not even the actress liked it, they said it was boring. But I followed my heart.

Do you think there has been progress in the use of cinematographic tools in your cinema? I’m learning little by little: I know the kind of look that I want when I’m conceiving a story. It’s very clear in my mind that I want to have a difference from the happy, normal look of the daylight in accordance to what the characters are going through, to the dark look at night. I spoke about it with my cinematographer and my art director and the others involved in the production: “this is the kind of look I want to achieve”. This is one of the ingredients to have the kind of participation I am expecting from the audience.

Natalia Ames