In Review: Ang Babae sa Septic Tank

The Gist

This Cinemalaya's blockbuster film and Best Film awardee, Ang Babae sa Septic Tank also won a lot of laughs from the audience thanks to actress Eugene Domingo's treatment of her character. The downside to this indie film being the poor sound quality and the overly long treatment of some parts which ended up dragging salvaged mostly by the wit and humor of the script.

The Good

• good casting
• extremely humorous script

The Bad

• dilly-dallied around too much on some parts
• poor sound quality (maybe because of the theatre where it was shown)

Synopsis

Director Rainier (Kean Cipriano), Producer Bingbong, and Production Assistant Jocelyn set out to make a gritty, realistic, award-winning independent film about a woman who, out of poverty, decides to sell one of her seven children to a pedophile. Along the course of the movie, they met with an arrogant director with gaps in his knowledge, the actress who they want to play Mila the lead role of their movie, Eugene Domingo (who plays herself), and a bunch of hooligans that brings them back to the reality of the movie they chose to make.

The Long Wait

Chris Martinez, writer, worked with Eugene Domingo on 2009's hit comedy, Kimmy Dora, so it is not suprising to see Eugene Domingo on this Independent film. The choice was logical and good, and any other actress would have made the script less funny. That is not to say that the others did not do well. In fact, it wouldn't be until almost an hour to the film until Eugene Domingo surfaces with actual dialogues and they did well to make the audience laugh. Although given that one knows that Eugene Domingo is part of the film (possibly thought of as the lead), it felt like such a long wait before she finally appears and does dialogue.

Mixed Bag

Ang Babae sa Septic Tank is a film within a film with most of the story going about characters debating the proper treatment for the film-within-the-film entitled "Walang-Wala" (Empty-handed, With Nothing, Destitute, or Dirt-Poor in English). The film starts with dreary scenes--the proper vision for the film-within-a-film. Then goes on with different treatments for the film-within-the-film for most of the film. This dilly-dallying about the treatments for the film provides the audience an insight on the hardships of the filmmakers whose only goal is to tell the story. As it goes on, the film tells that directors are often under the mercy of their producers, actors, and other financiers desires for the film as well as the dangers related to filmmaking based on the topic the director and the producer wanted to tackle.

Dragging parts aside, the movie is funny but can improve on some parts. As I have stated earlier in this review, a re-dubbing should be done to improve the sound quality of the film. There are times when the audience goes on a raucous and you are left to reading the subtitles to understand what is being said by the actors. Also, perhaps a better film ad blurb would suffice to set the audience's expectations as some may not be prepared to watch a film this lengthy (relatively) with their perceived main character appearing for dialogue near the end of the film.

Since this film will have a wide cinema release come this August 3, 2011, I doubt it the weaker portions of the film would be fixed. I also hope that the poor sound quality has something to do with the theatre where it was shown and not the because of the equipment they used, though I feel it has something to do with the latter--which can be resolved by redubbing--for which there might not be enough time.

My verdict:

A passing and recommended mark of 4/5.