Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros
Philippines,
2005, 100 min
Shown in 2006
CREDITS
- dir
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Auraeus Solito
- prod
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Raymond Lee, Michiko Yamamoto
- scr
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Michiko Yamamoto, Raymond Lee
- cam
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Nap Jamir
- editor
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Clarence Sison, Kanakan Balintagos, J.D. Domingo
- mus
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Pepe Smith
- cast
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Nathan Lopez, JR Valentin, Soliman Cruz, Neil Ryan Sese, Ping Medina
- source
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UFO Pictures, 18 Long Beach St, Merville, Paranaque City, Metro Manila 1700, Philippines. TEL: +69-3-917-322-8863. EMAIL: ufo_pictures@yahoo.com.
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COMMENTS
Auraeus Solito and Raymond Lee in attendance.
OTHER
The barrio film became a staple of Filipino cinema with the 1950s neorealist dramas of Lamberto Avellana and was honed into masterpieces by the late Lino Brocka in the 1970s. Auraeus Solito, a Filipino filmmaker of indigenous roots (the Palawanon tribe), has reinvigorated this most urban of forms in his impressive feature debut. Maximo is a preteen boy who lives a feminine life, loved and cared for by his widowed father and two teenage brothers who all lead lives of petty crime. Maximo cooks, cleans, sews and supports his family, and his squalid slum environment is lightened by improvised fashion parades and playing with other kids. When Maximo is helped one day by a new neighbor, Victor, his life takes a drastic turn: He falls in love with the young, good-looking cop. Moreover, Victor angers the family by encouraging Maximo to aspire to a better life. The potential melodrama of this adolescent love story is held deftly in check by scriptwriter Yamamoto (who also wrote the child tragedy film Magnifico) and Solito, who not only coaxes a convincing performance from newcomer Nathan Lopez, but also shades his environment with essential details of an impoverished community. Cell phone theft, illegal numbers games which Maximo helps to run, the ordinary life of a policeman and Maximo’s father railing against social injustice all contribute to a portrait of an “outlaw” society that makes its own rules. It is this creation of a sort of urban tribe with its own codes and customs that gives Blossoming its peculiar intensity and charm.
—Roger Garcia
FACTOID #173
Though he starred in an Opening Night film (1967’s How I Won the War), lent his image and songs to 1968’s Festival entry Yellow Submarine and was scheduled to appear at the 1971 Festival with wife Yoko for an evening of their short films, John Lennon never attended the SFIFF.
