“Remember that, of all the arts, for us the cinema is the most important.” – V. I. Lenin

The Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) is the only time of the year for Filipino film productions and makers to rake profit from mass viewers. Given our rentier economy, wherein it’s much easier for mall owners (which nowadays own most, if not all, moviehouses in the country) to profit from hard sell Hollywood films instead of waiting for the latest local flick to hit the silver screen, Philippine movie, at the turn of the millennium, declined. Why would mall magnates and big corporations venture in filmmaking if by marketing Hollywood movies, they would no longer invest in the steep cost of producing a full-length movie?

Such economy slowed down the production of homegrown movies. And to ensure that a rare Filipino movie would be profitable, it must bear the elements of instant entertainment, slapstick comedy, saccharine love lines, celebrity domination, out-of-this-world action scenes, non-sequitur, and cute and bubbly kids–elements perceived to make a film an instant hit to mass Filipino viewers.

And this makes MMFF the melting pot of such films, the only chance for entertainment companies to sell, where all of the mentioned elements may coagulate in a single top-grosser. It is the free market of culture–and true to being a free market, those who invest the most will most likely rake the moolah.

However, in the eye of film cognoscenti, this makes a top-grossing film gross. Indeed, is there anything more gross than ugly, comical characters getting hit on the nape by a good-looking main comedian? Is there anything more gross than a gunfight wherein 100 bullets can come out from a seven-round handgun? Is there anything more gross than a fifty-something archetypal male do-it-all being paired with a twenty-something/teenage female virginal character?

Welcome to Manila! Home of the baduy and the jologs! At least in the eye of an indie art critic.

But why can’t they question why such films are baduy and jologs? Why can’t they question why the masses–those who live in slum communities, those who wear ukay apparel, those who treat themselves to Jollibee as Christmas banquet– are willing to spend a good P200 per head out of their miniscule Christmas bonus (or Christmas sales from their small vending businesses) for a movie that features two bubbly kids in a plot that, as part of a smorgasbord of non-sequitur, place product ads (as per Lourd de Veyra’s review of the recent MMFF top-grosser)?

Some critics say that this is what corporations feed to them–consumable, substance-less entertainment and nursery rhyme-like pop songs–to subdue them, to make them ignorant, dumb, senseless apologists of a society ruled by oppression. In Adorno’s words, “to bring chaos into order.”

But I say, the dominant character and theme of MMFF films, as well as other mainstream Pinoy movies, is something demanded by the masses. It is what the masses want to watch, and this is what the corporations and culture technocrats give to them: Escapist entertainment to provide for the masa their psychological need to aspire for fame and riches, for a romantic and persevering love life, for a hero who can rescue them from their misfortunes, for religious morality in the midst of a savage and inhuman world, for in-your-face horror instead of worrying about the horrors of an uncertain tomorrow, or, to put it simply, just a good laugh for outside the moviehouse is a life of misery, stench, and savagery in their communities.

The masses do not want a movie that romanticizes the dirt poor community they live in. They eschew ad miserecordiam lines. But they will applaud the big promise of a Bossing or a Captain Barbell. Their desired result of class conflict in film (or T.V. drama) is when rich boy Joaquin would fight for poor girl Chichay’s acceptance of the rich (and to save her from low self-esteem). The burly masa man wants to identify himself to the Robin Hood characters of Jeorge Estregan, who is commonly paired with a young, sexy girlfriend to feed his unattainable Freudian desires. The masa woman raves for Kris Aquino as her heroine–the epitome of an empowered woman who can speak her mind, who can break the hearts of six-footers because she can live without them.

The masses do not want to be reminded of their own misery. They want to break free from it. But they are phlegmatic as a result of hegemonic oppression. Their psychological need for empowerment comes handy in a one-and-a-half hour movie. Never mind if these movies lack relevance; what matters most is that they’re interesting.

That’s what MMFF films can do, on a seasonal basis. That’s the power of movie.

That’s the fact most indie filmmakers and critics, consciously and unconsciously, will forever deny. For them, art, in the form of film, is the esoteric experience of self-actualization, a counter-culture in reaction to the banalities of mainstream culture. Like masturbation, it’s serving one’s self. It’s something that could give them a Palm d’Or and that’s it. It’s like tasting your own semen or vaginal fluid.

What’s more disheartening about this community is that they appear to be an exclusive club of sorts. Worse, indie filmmakers who produce socially-relevant films are also relegated to the peripheries not only because of the corporatization of the movie industry, but also because the indie purveyors themselves accept the fact that their craft is limited only to middle-class/middle-income aficionados “who understand art.” This realization crystallized when I attempted to watch a salvo of short films in a recent film fest in SM Aura. The film screening and selling of tickets were delayed by almost two hours and when I came back to buy a seat, it was instantly sold out to a little more than 30 Bohemian-looking aficionados who patiently lined up that day. The indie films were accommodated only in a 30-seater moviehouse in a posh area in Taguig frequented by the rich and middle class. This is also the case of indie moviehouses elsewhere; accessibility has always been a problem.

Another issue is substance. In every indie film fest, people outside the filmmakers’ circle will come out of the moviehouse clueless of what they’ve watched, while in the nearest cafe, competing filmmakers and critics will hang out praising each other’s film. In attending those film fests, it seems that the word self-actualization became synonymous to self-gratification.

The indie ethos cannot and will not reach the mass audience, even if it will be given a fair chance by the industry. It cannot elicit tears, despair, laughter, suspense, excitement, and smiles like what MMFF films, and even quality mainstream films such as Cinema Paradiso, The Shawshank Redemption, Three Idiots, Before Sunrise, and The Devil Wears Prada, can do. This is because such individualistic character does not empower and inspire–a wasted reel of film.

This is the challenge for future filmmakers and students of filmmaking searching for relevance: How to reach the mass audience–the masa audience–through empowerment beyond MMFF-ish entertainment. This can only be done by making the important interesting, and the interesting relevant.