JUN LANA’S “BWAKAW” MOST LIKELY TO BAG “PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD”

By GEORGE VAIL KABRISTANTE

PMPC (Phil. Movie Press Club)

From his blog Manila Showbiz and Lifestyle farmed out in different versions to Remate Tonight Online, Pilipino Mirror, www.pmpcstarnews.com.ph, Pssst, CMT (Columnists Monitorig Team) Update

Eddie Garcia and his most loved stray dog Bwakaw

JUN LANA’S “BWAKAW” MOST LIKELY TO BAG “PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD”      

When you’re 60 years old and  have fallen in love with love and loved as much, fall out of it as well once or a few more times, it’s not much of an issue on self-actualization as it is of meaningful existence before one  kicks the bucket and come face-to-face with St. Peter for the final reckoning.

But if you’re  alone  at 60, and yes gay and has not had any “meaningful relationship” at all with a lover (okay a loved one) nor with someone else, gay or hetero or family member(s) even and all you have to your lonesome is a domesticated “askal” (stray dog) at your fancy, there’s going to be an  issue_  philosophical  or at most an existential one.

Director Jun Lana

This is the subject matter being tackled by auteur director and multi-awarded winning playwright/screenwriter Director Jun Lana in his most recent outing at the Cinemalaya (2012) Director’s Showcase. 

Parenthetical, I must insist that if you are down to your shoestring budget don’t miss out on this one. You don’t have to be gay, hetero, lesbian, grumpy and gay at 60 which Eddie Garcia is in the digital film playing a reluctant, closeted gay who finds genuine friendship in his pet dog he found on the street and named it Bwakaw, also the film’s title.

In hindsight, Director Jun Lana’s “Bwakaw”  is a take on one of humanity’s most feared situations, gay or no gay, which is that of getting old alone and if you push the issue farther to not having loved anyone at all_ loveless and is “tigang” at 60.  This is where the most existential issue of the film  comes in . 

Would loving a dog suffice and make you nevertheless human like anyone else blessed with a loved one? Or would it make you less of a human?

Eddie Garcia

This  is master storyteller Jun Lana’s take on happiness which is after all relative _ and up to one’s responsibility from the way I see it in the direction of hermeneutics. Done in light, albeit biting humor you would be laughing at Eddie Garcia’s most effortless characterization all through much of it. 

“Bwakaw” I dare say towers over other entries  in the “People’s Choice Awards,” if not Best Actor for Eddie Garcia.  Thank God, Director Lana has downplayed Eddie Garcia’s  distracting tendency to “dialogue in” his funny antics and his habit of dishing out his patented Manoy’s sing-song and Bicolano accent that he used to do in practically all of his past movies.

At  best, “Bwakaw”  may yet get for Director Lana Best Screenplay and yes Best Director Award as well. He is no auteur director for nothing in the truest sense of the word.

At “Bwakaw’s” premiere I had a great time congratulating TV5’s Head of Creative and Entertainment Mr. Perci Intalan who  executive produced the brilliant project alongside the full force of TV 5’s PR mavens Lhot Ortega, Luigi and Papa Omar of TV5’s “Paparazzi” and Juicy.”

Yes, success was written all over our faces sharing it with  Director Jun Lana’s fresh and exhilarating take on the  question of man’s eternal quest for happiness. For this, I am bound to watch Sunday’s award’s night at CCP to share in the glory of watching “Bwakaw” snatch a “major-major” award or two. Catch “Bwakaw” at CCP, Trinoma and Greenbelt theaters. You will not regret it.

oOo