Ranchero

As mentioned, that was like the longest 1 hour of my life.  Or one of them.

Ranchero, according to the program, was supposed to tackle the role of food in prison.  Was it to keep the prisoners alive?  Or was food actually an instrument of torture for the inmates because in keep them alive, they are forced to endure prison life until the time they are released.  What if they want to die already?

Sounds intriguing doesn’t it?  That’s why this is the one we watched, not the other one.  Wrong move.

I don’t know if I lack film theory concepts, or I can’t appreciate art, or both, or whatever, but I didn’t like it.  Why, you ask?  oh, so many reasons.

Where to start?  Huh… Hmm… Well, what the hell is with the uber long takes man?  I can appreciate long takes.  You know, that people are acting with no cuts for so many minutes, and how the camera doesn’t shake and everything, and I guess they wanted to present the point that prison life is BOOOORING.  I’m guessing, okay?  I don’t know the motivation for that.  But come on.  Do you really have to show long takes for a guy waking up, and about 10 minutes washing his face, pissing, and walking around?  Or the cooking or something?  Daymn.  Like Jana said, 10 hours na ng sine wala pa rin siyang ginagawang bago!

Okay there, it was dragging.  Speaking of Jana, like 20 minutes into the movie, after sleeping, she left.  She couldn’t take it.

What else?  Oh, ang labo nung kwento eh!  Bwiset.  Hindi natakeup yung role nung food sa preso, siryoso.  ‘Yung issue na lang biglang may nawawalang kutsilyo, tapos maya-maya may nagriot na, tapos may namatay, at andoon pala yung nawawalang kutsilyo.  So wait… una, how did the cops know that a knife was missing?  Two, how did the guy with the knife get the knife???  Three, guys were just fighting over basketball.  How did everyone get involved?  Or why did everyone just suddenly storm out of church to join in the fight?  That’s so weird!  Oh, and after the riot, they just showed the main guy, sitting, for maybe around 5 more minutes, and then… the end.  Oooookay.

And the sounds!  The sounds of metal were way too loud!  It’s like they put lapels everywhere!  It was so unnatural.

And well, I guess I just really didn’t get the whole point of the movie.  Like Ambo said, it felt like they just wanted to make it a feature-length film or something, that’s why they used plenty of long takes.

I saw Sir Doy again after watching the film.  I was tempted to go ask him what he thought of the film but then he might say he found it good and well-crafted, mapapahiya lang ako.  Huwag na lang.  XD

Maybe I should just watch another film.  Nang matuwa naman ako sa Cinemalaya.  haha.  Except for Pepot Artista, di pa uli ako natutuwa sa mga napapanood ko doon.  XD