Philippine Entertainment News

Who would have thought that the murder of a gay (non-)reality TV producer could become a (non-)movie about a gay producer named Jay, played by an actor once rumored as gay, making a TV (non-)documentary about a murdered gay teacher named Jay? Clearly, filmmaker Francis Xavier Pasion had a complex game going on in Jay that it won Best Picture in Cinemalaya and it will be opening the Orizzonti (Horizons) section of the 65th Venice International Film Festival next week.

At the film’s ending sequence, the camera catches a book on mockumentary, and this tells the audience how aware the film is of its game. Popularly-hated but now critically-awarded Baron Geisler is shot ambivalently as the character and actor at the same time. The metanarrative renders perceived reality itself as ambiguous. Through this, its technology, casting, and production is justified. It’s OK that the documentary acting looks contrived since it’s supposedly scripted. It’s OK that the making of the documentary looks gritty since it’s supposedly unedited. Ironically, it wins the Best Actor and Editing awards.

Did Jay the murdered and Jay the murderous producer share the same boyfriend (Coco Martin) and the same mother (Flor Salanga)? But really. Even the filmmaker has factored himself in the game as a real-life TV show producer himself. In the end is a question: what is real? As with the chick that gets crushed on top of a casket in the film, how do we know if it just died accidentally or if PETA advocates should call for a boycott? Looks like a definite win.

Images from Paolo Feliciano. Trailer after the jump.