Friday, July 24, 2009

Cinemalaya 2009: 24K



The story may not be new, but just the same it promises to be fraught with drama: encouraged by a good omen, three treasure hunters--Manok (Julio Diaz), Freddie (Archi Adamos), and Boyet (Jojit Lorenzo)--return to their digging site in Suyo, Ilocos Sur and rejoin Karlo (Miguel Vasquez) and Arturo (Alchris Galura) in excavating what they believe is gold that the Japanese had buried during World War II. Signs at the site--shadow formations and nearly indistinguishable marks on rocks included--tell them that they're certain to unearth the treasure. But the locals are already aware and suspicious of their prolonged presence, and fear and paranoia inevitably set in.

Truth to tell, there are several things to like about 24K. There's the competent camerawork and editing, for one. The musical score is another, serving its purpose well, even if it has a suspiciously East Asian flavor to it. The amusing repartée between Manok, Freddie and Boyet, and their long climb back to the site, fly. And those smaller-scale rice terraces are quite lovely to behold. Compared to Chito Roño's Yamashita: The Tiger's Treasure (2001), this film is several notches higher.

Unfortunately, I couldn't add the characters to that list.

It's not that I didn't like them. It's just that I ultimately didn't find them as interesting as much as I (and they) should. The way I see it, writer-director Ana Agabin didn't flesh them out further, didn't make their personalities distinct enough. They even sound oddly alike, if one thinks about it. She also didn't delve that deeply into their desire and drive for treasure hunting, but to be fair she did touch on it in a nighttime scene midway through the movie. As a result, whatever tension the characters created among themselves comes off as superficial or weak. It's a shame, for the uniformly solid cast got shortchanged by this shortcoming.

Among the five, only Boyet stands out due to his habit of leaving food, beer and lit cigarettes for the site's guardian spirits, but I failed to know anything else about him beyond that. And when Manok hurries down the site and eventually unearths something unexpected in the end, it startled me. Specifically, it startled me that I didn't feel anything for him. No sense of loss, nada. It certainly didn't help that the fortysomething Diaz, who I must say could still reasonably pass for someone a few years younger, has never been a compelling, intense performer.

Also: that tribal dance toward the end, interesting as it was to watch, didn't serve the plot at all.

Too bad, really: I honestly wanted to like 24K more. But with characters I barely got to know or care, this movie is not exactly the goldmine it could have been.

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