REVIEW | Captive (2012)

Warning: contains some spoilers.

What makes 2009 Cannes Best Director Brillante Mendoza's films stand out in Philippine cinema is their sincerity. Mendoza's art is to paint the nitty gritty ills of his country in plain truth, exposing to his viewers shadowy, dangerous worlds meant to shock, thrill, and educate us.

In Captive, Mendoza retells the story of the 2001 Dos Palmas kidnappings, reimagining the plight of the Filipino and foreign hostages but essentially sticking to the true timeline and locations of the entire hostage crisis. In place of the American missionary Gracia Burnham, Mendoza's foreign survivor in this movie is a Frenchwoman named Thérèse Bourgoine (Isabelle Huppert), the central figure of the story.

The movie opens with instant action in the famous Palawan resort, as the Abu Sayyaf, followed by shaky cameras, raid and pillage the guest rooms, with only glimpses and shadows of the victims being seized, half-naked or buck-naked. Depriving us of facial expressions, we are only allowed to hear  their cries of shock and distress, punctuated by the faceless rebels' seemingly weak and self-conscious I'm-in-a-movie-but-I-have-to-sound-natural tone of voice, which I always, always dread from local actors. The "Ibaba ang baril!"  explodes with this example.

Captive bluntly and poetically captures the idealism, righteousness, and religious devoutness of the Islamist separatists and the suffering of their victims. In the movie, Mendoza demystifies the Abu Sayaff as your regular countrymen  in Mindanao who are just going through their daily business—  which happens to be to kidnap you for ransom and gain government attention in a nothing personal, we're just doing our duties kind of way, reducing the fear factor. They are basically portrayed as a bunch of nice people, only with different beliefs and principles—  except for one intense, almost non-speaking member, played by the ever-impressive Sid Lucero, the only frightening and unpredictable character in the movie. 

L-R: Huppert, Lucero, and Ronnie Lazaro

In this movie, the Abu Sayaff and the victims are in the same boat, and the Army is portrayed as the stupid enemy with strict orders from the government to carelessly open fire at the Abu Sayaff wherever they are, not really caring if they kill the hostages.

The cinematography is beautiful, transporting us to the jungles and the mountains, giving us a strong sense of place and event. Exotic animals are filmed, in delicious Discovery Channel-like close-ups, adding a sense of drama and hostility, like a snake devouring a fowl (superb shot!)— the action itself a symbol of captivity and oppression, of a surprise attack.

The dialogue adequately tells the thoughts and feelings of the characters, but we don't develop a relationship with them. This is due to the fact that unlike the snakes in close-up shots, the camera merely passes by or pans across the characters' faces, never stopping even for a moment to capture the agony, stress, or pain in their eyes. The shots are mostly long and medium, unfocused and constantly moving. This makes you, the viewer, identify them but not identify with them. Except for Huppert, with her subtle trembling lips and fingers and distressed eyes, you can feel something there. Also, only Sid and the foreigners were able to deliver their lines without that awkward I-almost-forgot-my-line pause, or forced conversational tone of voice.

I caught one crude aerial shot and a weirdly repeated scene: the school backyard with playing children was shown again, that for a moment I thought the film accidentally skipped back. 

The problem, too, is that the death of major characters is disregarded— Mendoza seems to hate close-up shots for some reason. We do not experience a ripple effect of their loss, no shock or grief, just mild surprise. Handsome rebel leader Raymond Bagatsing's death was beautifully unpredictable, but the rebel just dropped to the ground without giving us a satisfying view of his freshly fallen face. Just the same with Angel Aquino, the nurse we are with in the early part of the movie— hit by a bullet toward the end of the film but the camera just quickly moved on to other things. The Abu Sayyaf in the movie has more compassion than the camera. On the other hand, the camera loves to linger in moments when the characters are eating in pure concentration, or nonchalantly, and no evidences of acting here (except the awkward Cloud9-oh, yummy part).

The true-to-life story has potential to be more thrilling, emotional, dramatic, and verbally eloquent, yet Mendoza chose to be subtle, generic, and impressionistic, leaving you visually satisfied but emotionally shortchanged. However, Captive in its entirety is still beautiful, a movie that makes me proud that it's Pinoy-made, because of its unpretentiousness, the visually striking shots, the palpable sense of place and happenings, and the heartfelt moral, religious, and political atmosphere, delivered in a fairly streamlined narrative.  It's a good, absorbing, real movie that re-establishes Brillante Mendoza as an important and highly unique filmmaker in the industry. With its forgivable flaws, Captive still has an impact, generally impressive, and makes us look forward to more Brillante films.

★★★☆☆

In Philippine cinemas September 5, 2012

The Scale:

‎5 - Masterpiece. Must-see immediately.
4 - Almost perfect, must-see.
3 - Very good; entertaining. Can-see at the cinema, depending on your time and budget, but still see it someday on DVD.
2.5 - Passable. Wait for it on DVD. Not worth your cinema ticket.
2 - Bad movie. See it if you dare on DVD.
1 - Don't see it at all. Waste of time.
0 - Pretend it never existed. AWFUL to the soul. (Yes, I give a zero rating).