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Life, not death, is what matters in Two Funerals
IN THE TRADITION of most Philippine indie films, Gil Portes' comedy-drama Two Funerals highlights social ills and taboos - a rotten election culture, power-thirsty public officials, homosexuality, and even philandering in the Church. The twist: all these ingredients are stuffed into a feature-length film tracing the journey of two families whose lives are intertwined by the unfortunate "body switching" between budding hotel receptionist Charm Buensuceso and escaped convict Salvador Buenviaje. Charm and Salvador were killed in a bus accident. Due to the similarities in their surnames, funeral parlor personnel inadvertently released their remains to the wrong families. Unaware of the switch, Charm's father (Robert Arevalo) and fiancé Gerry (Xian Lim) take home the casket containing Salvador's body up north to Tuguegarao City while Salvador's brother Mulong (Benjie Felipe) brings the casket carrying Charm down south to Sorsogon. After discovering the parlor's faux pas, Charm's incensed mother Pilar (Tessie Tomas) embarks on a cross-region wild goose chase to retrieve her daughter’s remains in Matnog, Sorsogon. She is accompanied by Gerry and two other people, one of them played by Jeffrey "Epi" Quizon, from a funeral parlor who offered to help her. On the other end of Luzon island, Mulong - after learning about the switch and with prodding from an opportunist friend - deliberately fakes the wake of his brother to cash in on all the gambling and videoke sessions that are de rigueur in every Filipino funeral service. The film switches back and forth between the tedious and exhausting travails of Pilar's team and Mulong's devilish exploits. While on the road, Pilar and company are treated to a series of vignettes of Philippine traditions (good and bad) in a trip-down-memory-lane fashion. Traveling during the Holy Week, it was inevitable for the team to witness local festivities that added color to the rather somber tone of the story. From a pesky Chinoy restaurateur who drives them away for fear of bad omen to a self-righteous policeman who was actually only after kotong, the group realizes that tremendous grief over the death of a loved one does not shield them from the harsh realities in society. Applause for Tessie Tomas Near the end of the journey, Tomas - though able to hold herself up despite the grief weighing her down - is left sighing: "Patang-pata ang katawan natin. Pero gising na gising ang diwa" (Our bodies are exhausted, but our senses are wide awake)." As everyone will surely agree, Tomas stands out in the most poignant part of the film: days of "body hunting," if you may call it, culminating in finally seeing Charm's coffin for the first time since her death. Tomas' character, Pilar, bursts into anguished wails as she caresses her daughter's casket, more than enough to deceive (in a good way, of course) every single soul in the theater that she was no longer acting. It was reality she was effortlessly reflecting, simply living her character - and the scene with her seeing her dead daughter was her shining moment. The moment was so intense that as soon as the scene ended, silence enveloped the theater. It seemed the audience - like Tomas' character - needed time to pick themselves up for a few seconds. One. Two. Three. Then a loud applause. Breaking into applause inside a cinema in the middle of a film is commonly observed only in comedy films - that moment when the audience get too teary-eyed from laughing that the next logical thing to do is just to clap your hands. For drama films, the audience usually reserve their applause for the end, when credits start to roll - a sign of appreciation for the piece of art as a collective whole. But in Two Funerals, that single scene with a crushed Tomas was too moving the audience just couldn't wait for the end of the film to applaud her performance. Epi Quizon shines Tomas is not the sole gem in the cast. Quizon's character - a closeted gay father who zeroes in on Gerry as the apple of his eyes - executed some of the most memorable and funny scenes, including turning into a discreet peeping tom at one point. As has been long established - like in his past works like Markova (which incidentally Portes also directed) - Quizon is a natural and undeniably a credible actor, not the least when playing gay roles. Not that Tomas' humor in the film was lacking -- in fact, she manages without a cinch to shift from gut-wrenching drama to deadpan humor. But putting Quizon there cemented the humor in the film; his scenes were so funny only a gay character could pull it off, in the process offering the picture, so dragged by grief, some comfort until the final part of the journey. Life matters But ultimately, nobody cared about the ending - whether the daughter's body would be found - since all indications showed that Pilar was likely to locate her.
