A rose by any other name

Movie Review
Phantosmia
Directed by Lav Diaz

LAV DIAZ’S Phantosmia — which will premiere at the 2024 Venice Film Festival — turns on the simple conceit that a man who has experienced trauma will carry a trace of that trauma for the rest of his life, sometimes in the form of a smell. Doesn’t have to be a real smell — people have searched his surroundings at his behest looking for a dead rat or snake, find nothing; the stink is in his mind, a manifestation of guilt for committed sins.

In this case one Master Sergeant Hilarion Zabala of the First Scout Ranger Regiment of the Philippines (played by Ronnie Lazaro); recruited in March of 1953, presumably active during the Martial Law years (1972-1981), since retired. Zabala can’t eat, can’t drink, can’t keep his gorge down (at one point he’s bent over in an alley, retching and heaving at the stench that fills his nose).

Guilt is a central theme in Diaz’s films, in particular guilt manifested physically, as a somatic symptom, an active malady.

In his first released film Kriminal ng Baryo Concepcion (Criminal of Barrio Concepcion, 1998) Serafin Geronimo must endure a toothache so intense it swells the side of his face; in arguably the picture’s most disturbing moment he’s driven to punch his face till the abscess bursts, the pus spurting out the side of his mouth. Then there’s Hermes Papauran, legendary Filipino police investigator (Complains Peter Debruge in Variety: we’re never shown “what makes (Hermes) the ‘greatest.’” My reply: in the Filipino context “greatest” simply means someone who doesn’t give up) with his acute psoriasis as seen in Kung Wala Nang Mga Alon (When the Waves are Gone, 2022) and its prequel Essential Truths of the Lake (2023), a horrifying skin condition that suggests Hermes is rotting before our eyes.

Serafin Geronimo could do little about his condition except perform penance; Hermes in his early years asked his sister to treat the dermal eruptions. Zabala seeks help but his therapist Dr. Corazon Valle (Lhorvie Nuevo) suggests psychotherapy — a callback to Diaz’s Melancholia, where former rebels attempt to exorcise psychological demons in the form of role-playing. Dr. Valle’s is a less radical suggestion: a return to active duty which, in Zabala’s case, means assignment to the remote Pulo Penal Colony, hopefully to jog his memory into revealing the inciting trauma.

Maybe the therapy is even less radical than that. On Pulo Island, Zabala meets all kinds of types: simple Setong (Amado Arjay Babon), who cooks well but can’t think beyond following his adapted mother Narda’s (Hazel Orencio) orders; Nika and Brando (Heart Puyong and Mitzi Comia) who come to the island to pitch tents and participate in the annual hunting season; Marlo (Dong Abay), a poet who literally sets up a soapbox where he can stand and deliver on-the-spot verses; Reyna (Janine Gutierrez) — beautiful and young and slowly going blind; Narda, Setong and Reyna’s adoptive mother, who pimps Reyna out to the men on the island; and Major Ramon Lukas (Paul Jake Paule), the colony’s garrulous commanding officer, who nurses an obsession for guns and power.

As Reyna, Janine Gutierrez plays an updated version of Hazel Orencio’s memorable Florentina Hubaldo in the film of the same name, and gives us what may be the most accurate depiction of psychological and sexual abuse — and its grievous aftereffects — in recent memory. As Major Lukas, Paule gives us yet another fleshed-out parody of Diaz’s bete noir, the late president Ferdinand E. Marcos — not just his charisma but his eloquence, his massively self-righteous hypocrisy, his relentlessly cheerful early-morning (and late evening) propaganda greetings. Unlike Rodrigo Duterte, who was an unimaginative brute, Marcos didn’t just want to exercise de facto control over your physical self, he wanted to win over your mind — to possess you body and soul.

Zabala represents yet another Diaz archetype, the anti-hero seeking redemption. Diaz seems to gravitate to sullen loners, some more silent than others (Hook Torollo in Ang Hupa (The Halt); Hugo Haniway in Panahon ng Halimaw (Season of the Devil; the eponymous hero in Hesus Rebolusyonaryo), but these quiet protagonists also divide into two types: the dissolute poet-warriors seeking meaning in their lives (Hugo, Hook), the former military men seeking forgiveness for their sins (Hermes, Juan Mijares in Batang West Side (West Side Avenue)) — Zabala falls into the latter type: an expert marksman, a by-the-books soldier who survived Scout Ranger training when barely out of his teens, a boy forged by his father to be stone, to follow orders without flinching, to kill without hesitation.

Zabala may be the capstone to Ronnie Lazaro’s career — hard to tell, as he’s done so much tremendous work, so much of it under Diaz (one only has to remember his out-there performance as former mentor turned demented killer Primo Macabantay in Kapag Wala Nang Mga Alon). Here Zabala stands self-contained in his suffering; gradually the others on Pulo Island draw him out — Marlo with his poetry, Nika and Brando with their cigarettes and enthusiasm, Setong with his kindly innocence, Reyna with her great need. Even Narda and Major Lukas are an influence, negative reminders of what Zabala’s military discipline can become, if he’s not careful.

A pause to note that Diaz not just writes and directs but fully shoots and edits his films now, and the results couldn’t be finer — the black and white cinematography adds character to the locations (the wooden shacks and spaghettified power lines of cities, the leafy canopies, endless rain, and limitless skies of the countryside), lingers long enough to capture dramatic changes in sunlight, the soft glow of capiz windows; the action when it happens can be sudden and vicious yet pitiless, viewed through unflinching lenses.

Throughout Diaz sprinkles references to Filipino foods and dishes from all over — sweetened budin or cassava cake from Quezon; pinais (shrimp and grated coconut wrapped in banana leaves, slow-cooked in coconut milk, then grilled over coals for a smoky char) also from Quezon; bulalo (classic Batangueño dish of bone marrow and beef shank in broth); adobong bayawak (another Batangas classic, monitor lizard stewed in soy, vinegar, garlic, peppercorns); and a few enigmas (What’s fried gram? A local fish, apparently. Ar-aro? Stewed in vinegar and ginger (paksiw), but a Google search reveals only one picture, labeled in Ilocano. And ginulat na dalag — dalag is mudfish, but how do you startle said fish?). It’s as if Diaz wanted to celebrate Filipino cooking, didn’t have the budget to properly light and plate such delicacies, was forced to mention them only in passing, as incantations to evoke a mysterious magical culinary landscape — one Zabala can’t share or delight in thanks to his condition.

As for the closing sequences — a rare bit of suspense on Diaz’s part, reminding us that early in his career he was a prolific komiks writer and wrote for action directors like Manuel “Fyke” Cinco and Augusto Salvador — Zabala’s most heroic act may be in suppressing all the abilities and instincts (unwavering support of authority, unflinching response to crisis) he’s cultivated since young. After a lifetime of betrayal he attempts the ultimate betrayal, comes full circle to what he was looking for all along.

Best film of the year? Hard to say, we still have four months left. Easily one of the better works, definitely one of the most uncompromising, and — for me at least — one of the most substantial, most exciting to date.

(Lav Diaz’s film will premiere in the 2024 Venice Film Festival on the following days: public screenings — Sept. 2, 2:30 p.m. at the Sala Casino; Sept. 3, 9 a.m. at the Astra 2 and at 8 p.m. at the Astra 1; passholder screenings — Sept. 2, 9 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. at the Sala Casino, Sept. 3, 9 a.m. at Astra 2 and 8 p.m. at Astra 1.)