Brilliant Mendoza

Brillante Mendoza was born on July 30, 1960 in San Fernando, Pampanga, Philippines. In a country with little presence in the cinematographic world, it has been difficult for Brillante to shine, but in the end it has achieved it more than enough. Perhaps the fact that he did not direct a film until 2005, when he was about to turn 45, helped him mature and develop his own personality. Because until then his professional dedication had taken place between 1985 and 1989 in the world of artistic direction, and he appeared in the credits of the films as Dante Mendoza. Precisely in 1989 he also co-signed the script for a film in which he continued to deal with this task, Gabriela .

Then comes a 15-year hiatus. What did Mendoza do at that time? The filmmaker has commented that he “socially did not have the slightest possibility of penetrating the environment” film, for which he worked as a publicist. The fact is that in 2005 he reappeared as a director with The Masseur , a film shot in mini-DV later transferred to 35mm, a serious but sordid drama, of a guy who exercises the job of the title, and whose male clients require something more than the honest services that might be required of you. This commissioned gay title shot in eight days for $10,000 would win the top prize at the Locarno Film Festival. The following year, KaleldoIt gives an idea of ​​his visual strength, since he takes advantage of the surroundings of his native land Pampanga, where the Pinatubo eruption occurred. It recounts the vicissitudes of three daughters of a widower, and once again the sordidness is repeated, since we have mistreatment, infidelity and flogging, with a “totum revolutum” where religious feelings and lesbianism have a place. He will return to the gay theme with Pantasya (2007).

With the mentioned trajectory, Mendoza ran the risk of locking himself in a kind of ghetto, where only certain initiated lovers of the morbid would enjoy their talent. Fortunately, he opened up to a more universal and interesting theme in the albeit harsh Foster Child (2007), which realistically paints the world of orphans and adoption. His interest in describing the criminal world is already noted, which is confirmed that same year with Shooter , where he shows low-level criminals in Manila, which serves to criticize the way in which politicians face this problem. Mendoza described his film as a story about survival, and in its combination of professional and non-professional actors, and in his verismo, it approaches neorealism and documentary. in kinatay(2009) would show a more savage criminal reality, again with a morbid style and a strange magnetism that prevents you from taking your eyes off the screen. It is not surprising that the direction was awarded at the Cannes Festival, the Filipino filmmaker achieved the long-awaited recognition of the prestigious contest, and it is that he shoots with amazing vigor, the camera and the subsequent juxtaposition of the images speak loquently. He had attended Cannes the previous year with Serbis , which follows the adventures of a family that lives in a cinema where erotic films are shown. Degeneration accompanies Mendoza’s cinema again, since the film addresses issues such as bigamy or incest.

Mendoza assures that his film reference is François Truffaut , and in fact he paints reality, like the French filmmaker, with astonishing naturalness, making us discreet witnesses of it. The difference, obviously, is that the Filipino shows a dirty reality without too much shame. Perhaps that is why Lola (2009) is a surprise, a more delicate story, although it is also a social criticism without concessions. It follows the grandmother of a victim of violence in Manila, who must accept a deal that involves exonerating the murderer in exchange for financial compensation. A matter of survival, Mendoza’s favorite theme, which serves to expose the injustices of the establishment in his country.

At the moment, Mendoza is finalizing Captured , about the phenomenon of terrorism in his country, and which for the first time has a star, the French Isabelle Huppert . Regarding her look at the Philippines, she assures that there “Joy coexists with the most intense misfortune and with the daily struggle to survive; and religious sentiment verges on a form of immorality.”