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Batang West Side
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Wikipedia article
'Batang West Side' (also known as 'West Side Avenue' and 'West Side Kid') is a 2001 Philippine crime film written and directed by Lav Diaz, and starring Gloria Diaz, Raul Arellano, Joel Torre and Angel Aquino. The film gives an inside look at the life of Filipinos in America. With this murder mystery set against the idea of the American Dream, Filipino director Lav Diaz broke into the worldwide arthouse film market.
Plot
A story of the murder of Hanzel, a young Filipino immigrant found dead on the sidewalk of West Side Avenue in New Jersey. The circumstances leading to Hanzel's death are pieced together by Filipino detective Juan Mijarez, who takes on the case and interviews the teen's family and friends; but this triggers grim memories of his previous life as a government agent dispatched to Manila to kill student protestors.
Hanzel's first stop, Lolita's home, is a set right out of James M. Cain. Between his mother's abusive lover and her paralyzed new Anglo hubby, Lolita seems to have constructed the perfect expiation for the sin of selling her soul to support her children. On the other hand, the grandfather's house is a patchwork of warmly lit nooks steeped in middle-class comforts. Hanzel becomes a model student under his grandfather's strict but loving guidance, writing home to his siblings and sisters. However, unhappy and frustrated at not earning enough money to support his family, Hanzel keeps company with Filipino friends, drinking and eventually using and dealing a particularly corrosive kind of crystal meth.
More prominent points about the Philippine diaspora, the prevalence of shabu and gang warfare among impoverished youths, and the myth of the American dream versus the reality of a young man failed by his community emerge as police detective Juan probes Hanzel and his recently emigrated family's lives. The chain-smoking cop Mijares, however, is the star of 'Batang', providing narration for the autobiographical monologue about the soon-to-be murdered Hanzel. The film is shot in long takes, maintaining an evocative distance that reads as Mijares' probing gaze. Though he and his mother have been gone from the Philippines for many years, his sun-drenched overexposed black-and-white dreams of his mother are the film's only link to pictures of the Philippines. When Lolita's effort to poison her lover's dog backfires, she hurriedly drags the dog's garbage bag-wrapped corpse across the kitchen floor. An ex-schoolteacher drug dealer, lost in visions of Shabu-fueled cultural revolution and Filipino hegemony, croons love songs to an empty Karaoke club.
Simultaneously, Mijares obsesses over Hanzel's murder in increasingly disturbing ways. Mijares imagines killing Hanzel since he's cut off from his wife and family and going to turn off his mother's life support she's been on for years. Later, he sees himself mercilessly pistol-whipping Hanzel to death in a fit of rage, bouncing up and down in a wild dance before finishing him off with two swift pops to the head. Mijares drops the investigation and starts drifting. Other expatriate Filipinos' stories appear out of nowhere. The film seems to fall apart until the detours lead back to the core in an unexpected twist.
Cast
* Yul Servo as Hanzel Harana
* Joel Torre as Juan Mijares
* Gloria Diaz as Lolita Fordham
* Angel Aquino as Elvira Pareo
Accolades
The film won several awards at the Urian Honors, including Best Director (Lav Diaz), Best Actor (Joel Torre) and Best Score (Joey Ayala).
See also
* List of longest films
References
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