Dissecting the movie "Kubrador"

I usually judged a movie both by its content and the manner the content is presented. A movie might be bombarded with special effects but if it has no story, then it would still be just another movie. A film can also have quality content yet if the manner it was presented is dragging I still won’t bother watching it again, even if I liked the story. Thus, the content and the manner should work hand in hand. For me “Kubrador” exemplifies a film that successfully presented the story the movie has to tell.

The manner in which this movie is presented deviates from movies I usually watched in cinemas. I usually watched movies with loads of special effects like superheroes flicks, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean and I also like watching romantic comedy movies, and I don’t like depressing movies. True enough I only watched independent films at UP. Not that I don’t like watching them but because I have limited access. I would most likely watch indie films than watch Kim Chu and Gerald Andersen movie. Independent films that I had watched always brought a new story unlike other Filipino movies which are so commercialized with shallow, predictable content. But it is undeniable that non-indie films looked more attractive and have nicer cinematography. However, with the film “Kubrador” you don’t really need to see eye candy stuffs or beautify the ugly reality. Its manner is just effective in expressing the content. The manner the content is presented just made the film believable. I will present my basis using Plato’s, Caroll’s, Sesonske’s, Cavell’s and my own concepts on films.

First, I must start off by telling that the movie revolves around the everyday life of a bet collector named Amy played by Gina Parreño. She wakes up; get ready for the day, then goes out for another day of walking the streets, collecting and convincing people to bet. She meets her friends along the way and chat. Ponder upon events that happened or is going on around at that moment and analyzed them convert them into two digits. One time she was caught by the police red-handed, goes to the precinct, got out of trouble because the police chief happens to be a gambler too. Then she goes home with his husband, and they had a little verbal argument. Unlike the complex plot of Citizen Cain with a series of flashback with Rosebud as the element to make the story cohesive, Kubrador has a simple plot which is simply a narration of the daily life of Amy there’s no apparent element that knits all the events in the movie together. In relation with the manner, the feel brought by the style of filming is simple just like day to day life. As if you were only following Amy as she walks the streets until she is under the roof of her house. The only uncanny element in the movie is the ghost of his son. How did it achieve this?

Before answering this question, I shall say that movies take you to another world, the world you see in the silver screen. Yes, it may only be projected in a screen. Also, you are aware that it’s only a movie yet as Plato might have meant (Plato is indeed a genius for having this concept, considering it was so many centuries before movie is made) that movies moves you as if you are inside that world projected in the screen. It is as if you are experiencing what you see. You laugh, you cry with the characters. You get scared, you cover your eyes, and it’s undeniable that you’re in the grip of a movie’s power. Did I felt this watching the film “Kubrador?” I did, it actually made me feel the lives of many Filipinos. I actually feel for her, I was wondering how she’ll be able to pay the guy (tsk, tsk tsk). I didn’t really have an idea or a connection with gambling yet it was able to take a hold of my attention during the entire movie.

The Power of Movies as seen in Kubrador

Though this movie is not that much of a high-budget, it still possesses a power to direct your attention to it. Noel Caroll discusses how this is done. First is the variability of the focus of the film, through variable framing in which the filmmaker can make sure that we are seeing what we should see to tell the watchers what are the significant parts of the story of the movie. Variable framing is done in three ways. Indexing is one of the three wherein a camera is moved toward the object. This is seen in the movie Kubrador when the camera directed and moves toward the picture of a young man until it was focused on the picture alone and everything beyond the frame is excluded-this is another technique called bracketing. Scaling or making the photograph appear bigger was also done together with indexing and bracketing. Another instant that I noticed indexing is used was when Amy was listing the numbers and the camera moves toward her hand while writing down digits.

As what Caroll implied that these three different ways of directing the movie spectator’s attention helps develop the flow of the story. His particular term for this is movies tend to be narrative. Techniques used in variable framing actually give you the idea of what is going to happen. For instance, in indexing, bracketing and scaling of the photograph tells you that the photo is important and it first introduced that Amy has a son. I immediately grasped that Amy had a son who died, the movie spectator can get the point without it being mentioned before and even before the appearance of the ghost of his son in the film you already had an idea of it because of the indexing and bracketing of the photograph done in the film. It worked effectively. Noel Caroll also said that earlier scenes be related to later scenes as questions are to answers. In this scene, the focusing of the photograph sets a question in the watcher’s mind who is this person, shortly after that scene you see the guy in the photograph, then he suddenly disappears, thus letting you know that he is already dead, he’s a ghost. It also directs you to the last part of the story that is Amy visiting his dead son at the cemetery.

In the scene when the camera moves toward the paper in Amy’s hand, I made an assumption that this paper has a significant meaning or it will lead to something. And I was not mistaken for later on as the story unfolds, she got caught by the police and the paper in her hand was the evidence.

A scene that captured my attention was when Amy was praying to this saint image in her room. She, praying and the saint image were tightly framed and in closed form. In this scene you see the saint at the left side of the frame, occupying one-fourth of the frame (appeared bigger since it is closer), and then you notice her slightly at the center and there is a noticeable distance between her and the image. The placement of the elements within a frame suggests the relationship between her and the saint she’s praying to. Her character for me is analyzed in this single shot. The distance between her and the engraved image of a saint for me gives you the idea that even though she prays religiously one can’t deny the fact that she’s still not living what her religion teaches. Lighting is also a factor in the effect of this, as you see only Amy and the engraved image of the saint are well-lighted while other places in the room are dark. It puts more emphasis on what is important in the scene which is Amy and her prayer. This scene also raises a question, when Amy prayed that she won’t get caught. Get caught from what? Then, next scenes answered this question as you see Amy collecting bets. The prayer scene of Amy also let you think if Amy is really is religious. This is also answered as the story progresses when you see how Amy reacted seeing the priest and how she submitted without hesitations to the plea of the priest. She zealously asked people to give donations to the left loved ones of the dead. If you didn’t get why Amy cried upon seeing the relative of the dead person cried, this had an explanation as it was fully revealed when Amy and her family went to the cemetery to visit the son she lost. She cried because she remembered her son.

Another style of this movie which I think contributed to its simplicity is having only one actor who is really known. Stanley Cavell said that in movies you really don’t see the character but you see the actor. In this movie, Gina Parreño is the only actor I recognized. Because I know her to be an actress, I see the character Amy not solely as the character but I see Gina Parreño who is portraying Amy. But gradually as the movie progresses she effectively made me believe the character. No wonder she won Best Actress in an International Awards. Having only one known actor (that is, in my own perception) adds to making you feel that indeed you’re watching the real thing. It is more believable than other films that portray poverty with actors and actresses with fair, flawless skin. Since I do not know most of the actors in this movie I did not have any established conception of them as another person than the character that they are playing. Because I see characters not actors, its appeal to me is that I am witnessing not a film but a reality of the life of many Filipinos. I particularly like the grandchild of Amy and the “kulot” guy, they really seemed that of the place. The only down-side of other actors in this movie for me is poor acting, it made me feel uncomfortable that they sound like memorizing what to say.

Space, Time and Motion in Kubrador

Alexander Sesonske tells of space, time, and motion in film. Space in a film is three-dimensional you see actors moving within that frame. The action-space of a film is unusual with its discontinuity with the space of our world, as what was portrayed in the film, at the beginning you see a chase, you also get nervous and the adrenalin rush as the person runs as fast as he can so as not to get caught. He must have run kilometers already and he jumped from roof to roof. And he also took you in the chase yet you remain fixed in your seat. We, as Sesonske, said experience the events and have the feel of moving when we aren’t. This is actually one thing that makes me love watching movies. It makes you experience the adrenalin rush, the adventure while you remain seated. It seems that you also travel so far as the actor himself.
“The action space in the film is discontinuous in itself.” The actors and the viewers can directly go from point in action-space to any other without passing through any intervening space. In Kubrador, the use of this is not dominant. As far as I can remember the only parts this was used were the part when the chase is over then went to the scene when Amy first appeared and the part from the house to the cemetery. The thing is in this movie tells of what happens in the life of Amy, it seems like you’re only following her wherever she goes and scenes don’t shift from one place to another. It’s a narration of what happens in her days so it makes sense that this feature of a film is not that used in this film. The viewer travels along with Amy as she walks the streets. Because of this the movie for me appeared more real.

“The action space of a film is experienced as confined within a frame yet as unlimited.” All I can say about this statement in relation with the film Kubrador is that you are only seeing this limited scene of Amy within a frame yet you can move through it as characters go to somewhere else. There’s no dead end.

I couldn’t help but noticed how effectively the scenes when she was lost were shot. So there was Amy she was catching her breath, and the scenes were shot in such a way that you too is confined and lost.

Another interesting feature in a film is time. Like space, time in a film is not of the ordinary world. “Viewing time,” the time of our ordinary experience in which watching a film can make you feel time is shorter or longer. If you think the time seem longer than the actual duration then the movie is not that interesting to you and if you didn’t feel the time at all while watching the movie then you are enjoying(as of my own experience). To be honest, at first I really feel that a second is equivalent to a minute while watching Kubrador, the atmosphere of the film, her day to day life, with no special effects, no eye candy (the yucky scene when she stepped into a dung)..I couldn’t help but view the LCD of the DVD player. But later on as I was getting engaged into the movie, I was surprised that the movie just ended, it was hanging. I was “nabitin.”
The highlight when dealing with time in the movie Kubrador is how it managed to let the movie spectators feel that Amy’s day is over and another night has come within minutes, twelve hours presented within minutes. Sesonske term for this is dramatic time as he puts it, “The normal mode of time in cinema is a discontinuous, condensed time experienced as an uninterrupted flow.” In this movie what is seen in the day to day life of Amy were only those significant aspects, she wakes up, talk with his husband, sets out for another collection, talks with people convincing them to bet, goes to the “boss,” then went home yet it felt that we have seen it all. Sesonske said that a skillfully made film may convince us that nothing at all has been left out. Can I say that the film “Kubrador” is a skillfully made film? My answer is yes, I was satisfied and no questions were there about what is missing in Amy’s day. It was all there and it even made me feel her tiredness as well.

Motion. “...the view of the lens of a camera transforms this familiar experience.” The familiar experience he is talking about is that what we have which is a moving panoramic view. How a human being sees things differ from that of a camera. But in the movie “Kubrador” I can say that the director played with the traditional use of camera in a film. As what one of my classmate said that the movement of the camera is making her dizzy. For me the movement of the camera is not steady because it depicts of what a human sees when he/she is walking. When you are walking, you’re vision is not as steady as the camera. I think that in that scene, the camera is actually the vision of the dead son of Amy, who is following her. I especially like it when there was a raid and it seemed that the one who’s holding a camera is involved, and in that scene we are actually being in a vision of one of the person’s in that event. This made me feel that I am involved too.

To synthesize this long analysis…

“Kubrador,” the film do not really tells an extraordinary story, neither does it filmed in an extraordinary way yet it captured many recognitions worldwide. What makes this film stand out for me is the fact that it was presented in such a way that it did not looked like it wanted to preach something or proved anything. It simply depicts what it is like living in a “third-world” country. A Filipino taking chances on gambling, a Filipina marrying a foreigner, these realities were presented but nothing in the movie tells you whether it is wrong or right. It is up to the viewers how they will see or take the film. There are actually a lot of metaphors in the film, jueteng is not only a game in the film but it is also compared to our lives that also involves a lot of taking chances. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.”

I keep on saying the word believable. I also keep on repeating the word manner and relate it to the content. I just discussed the content and so I will deal with the manner. Jeturian made use of documentary style that is why the film is more realistic.

I would not say much any more because I might perhaps be going on circles. After dissecting the film “Kubrador” I give it four out of five stars. One star for the meaningful story, another star for the effective style of filming, the third star is for not attempting to preach anything, and the last star is for making the Filipino recognized internationally. I keep the other star because I do not see the effectiveness of the ghost. It somehow lessens the realistic approach that I’ve been praising about this film.

I’ve said so many things and commented on so many aspects of the film, from its technical to the socio-cultural yet I have not mentioned what I liked most about the film. The thing is I think I shall have to watch it again for me to find out what it is. I was somehow preoccupied with the variable framing that I somehow missed out lines that were said.