Film: Slingshot
Release date: 28th February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 86 mins
Director: Brillante Mendoza
Starring: Nathan Lopez, Coco Martin, Jacklyn Jose, Jiro Manio, Kristoffer King
Genre: Crime/Drama
Studio: Peccadillo
Format: DVD
Country: Philippines
The Philippines may not be widely known for its contributions to contemporary cinema, but Filipino director Brillante Mendoza has developed a reputation as something of a film festival favourite and prolific maverick with features such as Lola (2009), Service (2008) and Foster Child (2007). Slingshot (2007) is one of the films that has helped to cement his reputation: a hard-hitting, unrelentingly chaotic drama set in the squalid slums of Manila.
Slingshot opens as residents of one of Manila’s slum areas scramble about, desperately trying to prepare themselves for an imminent police raid. As the hand-held camera jerks about through filthy streets with open sewers and ramshackle structures that appear to be on the verge of collapse, we meet many of the characters we will learn more about during the course of the film.
Characters such as Odie, Caloy, Rex, Leo, Tess, Elmo and Rod do whatever it takes to survive - some of them struggling to hold down menial jobs to support themselves and their families while others engage in lives of petty crime. There is no real linear narrative to speak of; instead Mendoza jumps from character to character, giving us just enough time to gain an impression of who somebody is and what their circumstances are before cutting to somebody else…
The are few luxuries, and there’s not a lot to laugh about, but people do their best to get by in remarkably difficult circumstances. For many, the only means of escape is provided by sex, drugs or alcohol, but each one leads, in its own way, to further degradation and hardships.
Mendoza offers no respite as he immerses you in this overcrowded, polluted and crime-ridden world in which friends and family think nothing of turning against one another, politicians scrabble for votes leading up to a national election and many of the police are corrupt and sadistically violent. The poverty is grindingly oppressive, and when there are moments of flickering brightness they are quickly extinguished. In one instance, the happiness of a young woman who is overjoyed with a new pair of dentures she obtained from the proceeds of stolen goods is cruelly turned to despair when she loses them down an open drain.
Slingshot has the feel of a documentary shot on the fly, but the lack of editorialising means that it is up to you to interpret what you are seeing amid all the noise, squalor and chaos. Most of the cast are not professional actors, but at no point does Slingshot feel staged, and it’s almost as though the cast members are repeating things they have actually done, or are recreating situations they have already experienced.
The only contrivance is arguably the decision to shoot the film in black-and-white: Mendoza may have felt it echoed traditional black-and-white documentary photography but it undermines the naturalism of the film, and seems like an ill-judged concession to aesthetics. Some may argue that the absence of colour highlights the brutal intensity of Slingshot, or that it prevents the chaos of what unfolds on screen from becoming too overwhelming, but wouldn’t such arguments be missing the point that the film is an attempt to show the underbelly of Manila as it is, not to exaggerate or soften it?
Mendoza seems to be on firmer ground in the way he captures the claustrophobic, overcrowded nature of Manila (apparently the most densely populated city in the world) and the distinctive mix of Asian, US and Spanish cultures that is a result of the turbulent history of the Philippines.
Another strength of Slingshot is the way it exposes the jarring differences between the modernised Manila of pristine shopping malls and the decaying, labyrinthine slums that are home to the film’s main protagonists. Mendoza doesn’t dwell on or sensationalise these differences; he simply presents them as the stark reality that they are to Manila’s poor.
Unsurprisingly, there is no happy ending or sense of resolution in Slingshot, and even viewers who have a degree of faith in politics and religion will find it difficult to be seduced by the words of hope and redemption spouted by politicians at a mass public rally in the film’s final minutes. As the politicians attempt to sell themselves into power, there is a final streak of black comedy as we see a pickpocket at work in the candle-cradling crowd.
Brillante Mendoza’s Slingshot is a roller coaster ride of despair and depravity, but it also possesses a vitality and urgency that is difficult to ignore. Flawed as it may be, there are few films that match its intensity or raw drama. JG
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