![]() ![]() Its indubitable that Henares has real filmmaking talent and of equal importance to that talent, a graspable and workable sense of pop culture cultivated through the years of cinephilia mixed with arguably good taste. After Keka, Henares would be directing the more interesting half of Wag Kang Lilingon ( Don't Look Back, 2006), a plot twist-reliant ghost story that had him team up with television hack Jerry Lopez Sineneng, and Super Noypi (2006), a miscalculated sci-fi fantasy picture made for the Metro Manila Film Festival that had too many untalented teenage stars yet too little spark, an apparent mismatch of talent and studio bickering. Previous to Keka is Gamitan (2002), an unremarkable soft core pornographic picture wherein it is obvious that Henares was wrestling his artistic integrity with the viler commercial requirements of the movie studio that hired him. Keka remains to be Henares' lone truly satisfying effort (apart from the several wonderful shorts he made during college, most especially A Date With Jao Mapa (1999), a film that playfully pits real life matinee idol Jao Mapa with one of his obsessive fans). ![]() She has killed four men out of vengeance and is now deeply in love with the cop tasked to solve the murder mystery she started. ![]() Keka is all alone, reciting her frank monologue about how life is different from the happy endings of the corny movies she cherishes and that the story will definitely not end when the director decides to freeze the frame during that moment of extreme happiness and start rolling the end credits. However, above the very personal reasons behind that number's existence in the movie is the fact that it's an enjoyable and very effective cinematic device for Henares to portray the inevitable realization of the repercussions of the actions done by Keka (played quite playfully by Katya Santos). It's reflective of Henares' undying affection for cinematic camp, and to finally direct one, complete with the obvious dubbing, the hilarious choreography, and the signature freeze-frame that would signal the rolling of the end credits of a cheesy comedy, is probably a dream come true for the then-young director. Nearing the end of Quark Henares' Keka, everything stops to make way for a song and dance number, reminiscent of the ones that populated popular Philippine cinema during the eighties. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |