Critics reviews

Filmed in meticulously staged long takes, the camera prowls the police station, and while its handheld nature proved too much for some viewers, it is only fitting that such an alarming insight into Duterte's Philippines carries a jolt.

Brillante Mendoza—always less than brilliant—has clearly made it his mandate to project the ugliness of modern Manileño life by making films that embody said ugliness, which invariably results in films that are a) ugly, and b) predetermined, single-minded, and boring. (Others prefer to call it ‘neorealist', because everything sounds prettier as an -ism.) Ma' Rosa is no different, but at least, according to this year's Cannes jury, it gave us a great lead performance from Jaclyn Jose.

The austere film was an effective rendition of the violence and precariousness of life in the bas-fonds of the Philippines, but it caused barely a ripple of attention from a press corps consumed by more attention-grabbing fare.

Those who're familiar with Mendoza's work have a reason to dismiss this as yet another more-of-the-same exposition of hyperrealistic squalor, with hand-held camerawork weaving in and out of the action, the glistening, rain-soaked slum streets in the background. But still, nobody does this as convincing, and with unexpected humanity, as Mendoza.

I wish someone would buy Filipino director Brillante Mendoza a decent camera. His latest effort, Ma' Rosa, is far and away the cruddiest-looking film I've seen here this year, and possibly in several years—even Tangerine, the movie famously shot on an iPhone 5s, looks better. Not that a sharper image would much improve this chaotic portrait of police corruption, which seeks to engender empathy for small-time drug dealers by demonstrating that the cops who arrest them are even worse.

There's a predictability to the plotting, but as ever Mendoza proves himself adept at eliciting decent naturalistic performances from his cast, and his use of long takes and travelling shots is bold and assured. If there's nothing profoundly original or insightful here, there's no denying the atmosphere of squalid authenticity, particularly in the scenes shot on the streets.

As an indictment of the ubiquity of the country's corruption and the banality of evil, it's neither as harrowing as his own "Kinatay" nor as stylish as compatriot Erik Matti's noir crime thrillers. Still, as in most of the director's repertoire, he portrays working class family relations with unpretentious warmth.