I had seen five out of the seven Cinema One Original full-length narrative films in competition this year, and so far, every one of these five had been above average in quality. I was expecting this sixth one "Nervous Translation" would also carry on the torch of excellence of the field this year. Sadly, it did not.
It was the late 1980s. Yael (Jana Agoncillo) is an introverted little girl who lived in a world of her own. She spent her day listening to and memorizing tapes sent by her OFW dad Dodong to her mom Val. One day while watching TV, she saw a weird Japanese ad for Ningen, a pen that was supposed to be for "a beautiful human life". She was so obsessed with this pen that she even went out of the house one stormy day to try to buy one at a nearby store.
My first issue with this film was the time setting. What year exactly is this story set in? One of the father's tapes was labelled "Christmas 1987". They mentioned Typhoon Unsang, which was a strong typhoon in 1988, so the story was presumably set in that year. However, why was the news we heard and saw from their TV still about the fall of the Marcos regime, including footage of people overrunning Malacanang Palace and Imelda's shoes. We know that this historical revolution happened in 1986.
To be fair though, the production designer was careful to have only dial phones, cassette players (which they call a "component") and tapes, Betamax players and tapes, cathode ray tube TV sets inside Yael's house.
The whole film was like one flight of consciousness piece about what goes on inside this shy, odd little girl Yael's active mind. We do not see the mom Val (Angge Santos) onscreen until maybe 20 minutes into the film, and she was always cold and distant for the whole film. Why was the skin of Yael's arms suffering from some sort of dermatitis which required her elbows to be wrapped with bandages? It seemed like a big deal, but it was never brought up except when her cousins teased Yael of being a mummy.
Then the next scene, we see them welcome into their house her father's charismatic rock star twin brother Ton Ton (Sid Lucero), from the famous band called The Futures. He brought along his very annoying wife Bette (Thea Yrastoza) and their even more annoying children. This family disappeared from the scene as suddenly as when they arrived, with no apparent purpose in the story. Was Val supposed to have a hidden desire for brother-in-law Ton Ton, since he looked identical to her husband except for his tattoos? That was the uncomfortable vibe during that whole sequence of scenes.
The whole Ningen pen sequence was exasperating beyond relief. It just went on and on with nothing happening. Yael shown to go back to that school supply store more than once, even during a heavy downpour. The pen was worth P50, but she only had P17 in her porcelain rabbit bank so she never got to buy one. What really was this pen supposed to be about? Was this about how kids are affected by TV advertisements? I do not get the point that was being pushed at all.
After patiently but restlessly sitting though the first hour and a half of the film's running time, we arrive at an open ending that did not give me any sense of being worth waiting for. I will commend the production designer for painstakingly creating a doll-sized house and doll-sized neighborhood out of paper which was seen soaked in dirty water. But again, what was this supposed to mean? Did Yael and her mom survive the bad typhoon and flash flood?
If not for the pure wide-eyed innocence of 8-year old Jana Agoncillo (she grown up a bit since we last saw her as "Ningning" greeting us a "Magandang buhay!" on TV) so well-projected on screen as Yael, no other adult cast member gave a remarkable performance. The film was so languorous in pace and so laborious to watch, with frustratingly no worthy redemptive value to reward the viewer afterwards for staying to finish the film.
I'm pretty sure writer-director Shireen Seno was trying to tell us something about a child's unique perspective (or something to that effect) but I did not get at all from the film I saw. I do not even know why it was entitled "Nervous Translation" at all. I did not see anyone nervous, nor see anything translated. 2/10.
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