Simply Perfect

Pretty Good

Absolutely the worst movie.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Somewhere bridging the gaps between documentary, video art and classic narrative is John Torres' Todo Todo Teros. It's not quite anything, but still illuminates a rarely divulged glimpse of terrorism in modern Manila. Probably the clincher of the film is the discovered footage of the romanticised Olga with Pilipino film-maker come terrorist Earl Drilon which, perhaps the only element with linear story-telling, drives the abstract 'observational' narrative to having some meaning.If anything, this movie is more a description of Manila than a typical escapist film, showing grunge and seedy pop culture alongside typical streetside conversations filmed as surveillance footage. Torres makes the audience feel uneasy about Manila and its inhabitants, while still admiring some form of beauty, mostly thanks to co-writer Joel Toledo's poetry. The only comforting component is the video diary footage with Olga whose infatuation with the man who later bombed Berlin is intriguing while remaining distant. It's never clear what their relationship is while the Russian guide unravels intimate details of her personal life and Earl attempts to trick her into saying "I love you." If anything, the beauty of these scenes is most disturbing as it could be compared to reading the diary of a terrorist for the sake of their romantic pursuits.Earl's wife is equally disturbing. Her haunting quietness as she obsesses over the footage becomes a common motif and the footage is bounced of fans, walls and ceilings as the expression of her agony. This motif seems to confuse the film's intentions as the avant garde expression of what becomes video art unforgivingly reflects the remainder of the film. Awkward fly-on-the-wall footage with on-screen text and seemingly pointless shots reflect too heavily on being video art to truthfully convey the film's purpose. The concept behind this film is brilliant, and blurring the lines of realism in the delivery is brilliant; but getting lost somewhere amidst dialogue that is purposefully made incomprehensible and observational footage of people who are of no consequence to the story is also blurring the lines with video art which, for a feature length movie, I think is not so brilliant.

Edit Todo Todo Teros (Film Journal) by Matt Minter on Thursday, 08 October 2009 at 19:24 Citizen Dog is one of the most enjoyable pieces of entertaining art of Asian Cinema and general cinema as well that I have ever watched. What a contrast compared to Todo Todo Teros, a experimental film. Well the experiment has failed Mr Scientist. Firstly Todo Todo Teros is not a film, but simply a random series of video clips shuffled together. The individual clips of the video footage look to be taken from the News, observational documentary and screwed up music clip.From the Introduction that represented a corny music clip onwards I knew that Todo Todo Teros was not going to rate well, but I was willing to give it a chance. I have never been so bored and yet puzzled by a visual medium in my entire life. I can't say the story behind Todo Todo Teros was bad as I had no idea what the story was. All that was communicated to me was surveillance footage of members of the public in a city and that the protagonist has an obsession with a European woman. The Dumplings in one of the scenes have more character development than what the protagonist did. I asked a number of people (all more open minded then myself) what was happening none could tell me, especially the one that was fast asleep. Apparently this "sequence of random video clips" was to be following a terrorist filmmaker Earl Drilon. After watching an agonising 40 minutes of this "sequence of random video clips" I wanted to slit my wrists. I took a 15 minute break, came back and found that Todo Todo Teros was as uninviting as it had been from the start. Can't believe Todo Todo Teros received an award in Best Editing, can't say the editing was good or bad as I had no idea what story the editing was reflecting on. Sticking together a sequence of random video clips to make an unclear story is not good editing at all.It does not matter whether Todo Todo Teros was an experimental film. This "so called film" failed to meet the basic requirements of cinema, firstly respect for the audience. Every entertaining piece whether it is a film or a short story needs to grab the audience's attention right from the introduction. The film maker/ storyteller should be trying to bring the audience into another world (escapism) to convey message/s that need to be told via characters/subject or story. A film maker like any performer is to entertain others not just their own selfish desires. I only watched 45 minute, but is Todo Todo Teros really about terrorism or does it show about a self indulgent "auteur" prick who blatantly ignores the serious consequences terrorism has on individuals and the community, such as mass killings and striking fear to people's emotional wellbeing. Gawad Urian Awards gave Todo Todo Teros for Best Screenplay, what screenplay?What Todo Todo Teros does show is the delusions its admirers, film theorists and some film festival have on what deserves acclaim, because it counters Hollywood with its "typical narrative" and box office profits. "Typical narrative" has long been around thousands of years before the creation of Hollywood and American cinema, look at Greek myths and Aboriginal dreamtime stories for example. Film festivals like Gawad Urian Awards that gave this recognition were obviously run by Film Theorists, people who ignore good storytelling. I don't care how much money or how many awards a film receives, both factors don't affect the power of the story/subject being told or not told in this case. My advice to John Torres is to cash in his video camera and think about a new hobby, like collecting lint.