Leonor Will Never Die
Martika Ramirez Escobar’s Sundance hit from the Philippines is actually a complete mess.
It was almost one hundred years ago that Buster Keaton made a comedy that is still admired today. That film was Sherlock Jnr. in which Keaton played a cinema projectionist who, on falling asleep, imagined that he had entered the film which was being screened. The debut feature by Martika Ramirez Escobar, Leonor Will Never Die, has a central notion that sounds like a variation of that. In this film from the Philippines a retired film director named Leonor Reyes (Sheila Francisco) is hit on the head by a jettisoned TV set and, landing in a coma, she imagines that she has entered a film which she had scripted but which had never been made. She knows what the characters will say before they speak and can intercede in the action since she knows what is set to happen.
Learning of this concept before I saw the film, I had the impression that Leonor Will Never Die would be a fun movie and one in which the film within the film, shot in a different ratio so that we always know what we are watching, would echo and spoof the kind of 1980s action films for which Leonor Reyes had been famous. If that suggested an agreeably tongue-in-cheek affair, one did wonder to what extent and how successfully more serious issues might be incorporated since the description of the film did imply some such elements. Thus, there was a personal tale present in both sections which would echo each other. Leonor had had two sons one of whom, Ronwaldo (Anthony Falcon), had died leaving his brother Rudie (Bong Cabrera) as the old woman’s support in her old age. In the film written by Leonor a mother also loses a son leaving his brother to vow vengeance for his death, but here the character named Ronwaldo (Rocky Salumbides) is the surviving son and not the dead one. Then there’s the issue of possible social comment. Leonor's film portrays a place where ordinary people are at the mercy of powerful figures who rely on violence, torture and killing and that may or may not be read as a reflection of what happens in the real world (oddly enough the fatal incident that had killed the real Ronwaldo turns out to be an accident on a film set which brings to mind the situation in which Alec Baldwin finds himself).
However one chooses to interpret Escobar's intentions here, there is no doubt that Leonor Will Never Die despite any echoes of earlier films is a highly novel work. Originality is, of course, to be encouraged, but here it leads to a film that is disastrously inept in every respect. One may be expecting humour but the film takes some twenty minutes before Leonor is hit by the TV and the portrayal of her in old age which precedes that fails to bring out any of the expected humour. Instead, it shows her imagining the ghostly presence of her dead son and failing to pay bills so that her electricity supply is cut off and plays all this relatively straight. Even when we move on and the film starts intercutting between the world in which the old Leonor actually exists and that of the imagined film into which she has entered Ramirez suggests no great skill with comedy. That’s despite the fact that the film within the film plays up her comic intrusion and even ultimately leads to rewinds as we are offered variations on how this film might end. It could, of course, be argued that Leonor Will Never Die is seeking to be something other than a comedy as such much in the way that on the British stage Sandy Wilson created The Boy Friend not as a parody of the musicals of the 1920s but as an affectionate pastiche. That could, indeed, be the idea here, but the film within the film seems to relish the violent fights and the resultant gore which are not toned down. Those who adore such movies (I am not of their number) might find a recreation of this type endearing but I was quite unable to do so and in any case if there is any underlying intention here to decry violence that seems inconsistent with this footage.
Elsewhere this charmless film seems to be aimed at modern audiences who would be disappointed with any film that excluded strong language or failed to include a scene involving masturbation. For that matter, although Ramirez goes for adroit casting in choosing Sheila Francisco for the role of Leonor, she opts to include a scene that shows the actress on the toilet. There is too a sense that Leonor Will Never Die has been created without any consideration being given as to the rules within which the tale needs to operate. Given Leonor’s state of mind it is apt enough that she should imagine the presence of her dead son but the latter also appears in scenes not involving her but featuring instead Rudie and their father, Valentin (Allan Bautista). Equally at odds with the surrounding footage is the fact that in the film within the film Rea Molina, having fittingly enough turned up as a burlesque dancer, proceeds to give a brief but rather sweet performance as that film’s romantic lead.
As though desperate to find an ending, Leonor Will Never Die finishes with a full-scale musical number after this has been approved by Rudie who speaks to Ramirez and her editor Lawrence Ang (they appear as themselves) to confirm that Leonor would have approved of this conclusion. But at the very end the credits roll against a shot of the modern city so what should we make of it all? Escobar may want to celebrate cinema as a form of escapism but what she gives us consists only of things that I want to escape from.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Sheila Francisco, Bong Cabrera, Rocky Salumbides, Anthony Falcon, Rea Molina, Allan Bautista, Tami Monsod, John Paulo Rodriguez, Dido de la Paz, Ryan Eigenmann, Don Melvin Boongaling.
Dir Martika Ramirez Escobar, Pro Mario Cornejo and Monster Jimenez, Screenplay Martika Ramirez Escobar, Ph Carlos Mauricio, Pro Des Eero Yves Francisco, Ed Lawrence Ang, Music Alyana Cabral and Pan de Coco.
Arkeofilms/Anima/Purin Pictures-Conic.
99 mins. Philippines. 2022. US Rel: 25 November 2022. UK Rel: 7 April 2023. Cert. 15.
