Adolfo B. Alix's PORNO: Abyss or Bliss

With a hefty week in school, it was nonetheless a divine conspiracy that we watched PORNO at its Gala Night at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The title itself speaks of something carnal, ecstatic, and vile. The standards of contemporary society label pornography as vile, a foul staging of sexual activities for gratifications of the flesh. But deep within a collective rejection are massive patronage, stately neglect, and flourishing industry. Ergo, such rejection is actually a sugarcoat of a denied indulgence of the many.

                The film allows us to peek in three lives of men – how they live with it [porno] and how they face its harsh consequence. Viewer’s eyes will roll on their oblique existence in a world that tries to be linear.

The Assassin’s Tale: Sex and Blood

                Yul Servo’s role as assassin, hired to kill a prelate, was capsuled in the four corners of a motel. In it, he drew his paradise with a prostitute[Rosanna Roces] forgetting the fact that he failed to fulfill his task. But along the coital activity, he hears voices that lurk behind the room’s walls and feels voyeurism. However, with the pleading of his partner, Servo continues his sexual intercourse. In his misery, he opts unorthodox solutions for the bounty of a distant family. It is his killing of the prelate that emphasizes man’s brute force to the extinction of faith and death of spirituality.

The Porn Dubber’s Tale: Moan of Conscience

                Carlos Aquino plays a role of a dubber who hardly meets the standards of a perfect masculine moan. He is noted for his immaturity to bring the cudgels of his labor – his lack of sexual experience. But, aloof from this impression, he is inclined to a peculiar habit of posting pictures of women whom he anonymously met in social networks. His petty addiction begets the wrath of a lady who decides to die. Through the end of his tale, he encounters unusual calls. Aquino, then receives an adverse consequence of his perfidy and ends in the sympathy of an old prayer group. While there is rampant delight in earthly pleasures, there is a small ailing group of faith. This draws the perfect image of the senility of faith but the senility is held by the youth not the old.

The Transgender’s  Tale: Acceptance of the New Self

                The central dilemma of Angel Aquino [the transgender] is his son’s acceptance to his deliberately altered identity. He laments that his son, with an innocent age, longs for the natural paternity that he cannot offer as he already crossed a different gender and there is no point of return. Gender alteration is an immense reality to be immediately grasped by a family especially for the young ones. But whether we deny it or not, its presence is something to be thought about as context in the Filipino family. It is also harder for Angel Aquino since his son lives abroad. For all cases, it is hard to convene a realization with a family in Diaspora.

                One thing commendable with Director Adolfo Alix is his astonishing organization of the smooth continuity of three lives as if it were in a singular story. Each story cuts through every tale of the whole film. He neatly sews a plot of open secrets of the society. He enables the audience to independently venture to the depth of the story. PORNO gives us not the stereotype of obscene imagery but the obscenity of life itself- the fragments of a shattered life. It openly tackles things which are talked in clandestine. It provides more than the depictions of sexual intercourse but leave the audience with a cerebral discourse.  The audience is therefore challenged to evaluate whether the lives are abyss or bliss. It also aligns itself to the theme Cinesthesia: Synergy of Senses as it culminates the multi-dimensions of life, engaging the senses to the merge of reality and art.

                PORNO asks us to consider the bitter and the foul in the society. And the Filipino Film should never hesitate revealing the truths in our society whether good or bad.

TRAILER:

*This films is only screened at the Cultural Center of the Philippines because of its sensitive and explicit contents. For more info CLICK ME.

**Schedule

July 27 9:00 PM

July 28 10:00 AM/LT; 9:00 PM/THB

July 29 10:00 AM/THB

July 30 10:00 AM/THB; 3:30 PM/THB; 6:15 PM/MKP

July 31 10:00 AM/THB; 12:45 PM/TMC

Aug 1   10:00 AM/MT; 3:30 PM/MKP

Aug 2   10:00 AM/LT; 12:45 PM/MT

Aug 3   10:00 AM/LT; 12:45 PM/LT; 9:00 PM/TMC

Aug 4   12:45 PM/THB

THB- Tanghalang Huseng Batute

MKP- MKP Hall

TMC - Tanghalang Manuel Conde

AT- Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino

MT- Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo