MARKOVA: Comfort Gay

[red_door8]

Of all the Dolphy-movies that I have watched, this is totally different. The past Dolphy-movies were dominated by humor and injected with a little drama. Now, in this movie "Markova: Comfort Gay", is almost a 100% drama but injected with humor. Likewise, Dolphy had never done a true story in his showbiz life.

This movie is a true-to-life story of Walter Dempster, Jr. otherwise known as Walterina Markova. Markova's father is a doctor while his mother is a plain housewife. He has three siblings, one brother and two sisters.

Markova is a good movie to watch. It also shows us that women are not the only ones that were sexually molested by Japanese soldiers but also the gay.

One of the best lines that I heard from Markova is that he said that he was just being true to himself and he's not pretending.

[goonie]

watched it yesterday with my mom and my brother. we were thoroughly interested because the practically the whole quizon family was there (well... ok... not all). the question on my mind was what kind of movie would pull together all that family effort?

eniweys... it kinda shocked me considering that it showed explicit scenes of man-rape. but the story was really good in the sense that it tried to delve into the psyche of the persona. although medyo bitin yung pag-exploit nung experiences ni markova, i'd say it turned out pretty well.

one comment though... who thought of putting loren legarda into that flick? la lang.

[GadoGado]

What's the difference of man-rape and woman-rape anyway (in terms of being grotesque), it's time to let the people know that such things do happen, we've battered women so much by explicitly showing rape scenes involving women ever so often in hundreds of movies.

One thing I noticed about the film is it has some historical flaws. There was a scene wherein the time setting was not of the present but a Pajero passed by the church. And then the basketball scene in the 40's seems falacious if they want to use basketball as a stereotype for masculinity since during those times, men didn't want to play basketball, they thought it was for women, and baseball is for men.

I liked the movie, but what i hate is the end result with regards to the audience. It doesn't make the filipinos change their typical image of a gay. The film emphasizes only on a small kind of gay people which is the "drag queen." It reinforces the filipino idea that gays are generally cross dressers who want to be women, it makes the people think that it is impossible to have gays who just love the same sex but aren't necessarily effeminate.

And yes, practically the whole of the quizon family was there, kulang na lang si Vandolph and Boy II Quizon.

[pyket]

i watched the movie awhile ago. medyo may inconsistencies nga sa period. if i recall hindi naghuhubad ang mga lalaki noon --- mas lalo na sa tapat ng babae (referring to the basketball scene). tapos yung friend ng kuya robert ni walter, the rape scene in particular: uhm... nagtatapis ba nang ganoon ka liit ang mga lalaki noon? medyo miniscule ata yung tuwalya. anyway...

shocker for me and my friends: si anita po si RICCI CHAN!!! for those who watched RENT, siya po si Angel. "may sinigang na talbos ng kamote..." "sabihin mo lang mabilis kaming kumagat..." grabe na the moves!!! go ricci!!!

anyways, kakaiba nga yung movie na 'to. may redeeming value yung comedy. pero yung nga lang, stereotypical sabi nga ni gadogado. PERO then again, biographical eh. can't change a person's life to be politically correct

loren legarda should remain a journalist and a senator hehehehehehehe... "oh god!" / "i'm looking for comfort WOMEN... not a comfort GAY" or something to that effect.

[uptowngirl]

Jeffrey Quizon won this year's Best Supporting Actor award. Congratulations to him!

I should watch this movie!

[ivorytusk]

I've been having second thoughts of watching this film because I dislike Dolphy. But after the presentors called Jeffrey Quizon as Best Supporting Actor in this year's Metro Manila Film Festival, maybe I'm convinced that this is a good film.

[archerguy]

I watched it last Dec. 26 and it was a good movie, though I really think that children shouldn't be allowed to watch the flick because some scenes were really obscene, especially that man-rape by the Japanese which included oral sex, and the rape by the friend of Markova's brother. Jeffrey Quizon really deserved the award. I like that scene after he got beaten by his brother when he was seen acting like a gay in the swing...in front of the men he did a Miriam Quiambao-kind of getting up and strutted his way to the girls. And also when he jumped for joy after his brother's death. Hehe. Dun sa last part when he was dancing in the stage he looked like Chynna Cojuangco. Galing niya talaga. The biggest shock was LOREN LEGARDA...I can't believe she was even nominated as best actress! Talk about bad taste.

[pyket]

wala bang gaano nanood nito??? i enjoyed it.

Loren Legarda lang nga talaga...

[purploony]

i have mixed feelings about the film. i think it's revolutionary, how they portrayed gays in the Philippines. i guess nabigla lang nga ako sa explicit rape scenes. yes, ideally they can show that if they show women being raped all the time in other films; and kailangan din ipakita na ganoong kabrutal for the viewers to understand. pero... nabigla pa rin ako *g*

great acting by the father and two sons!

i feel sorry for the scriptwriter (Clodualdo del Mundo, Jr) -> his name was misspelled on all the movie posters . He's brilliant, by the way, and I don't say that only because he's my professor if you watch his other films, he's really not afraid of tackling controversial or non-conventional themes. Maynila... Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag tackled man-rape also.

and i totally agree: Loren Legarda??? WHY???

PS hi goonie!

[arete]

Naku, sana mapanood ko na iyan...mukhang nakakaintriga...

[red_door8]

Originally posted by goonie
watched it yesterday with my mom and my brother. we were thoroughly interested because the practically the whole quizon family was there (well... ok... not all). the question on my mind was what kind of movie would pull together all that family effort?

eniweys... it kinda shocked me considering that it showed explicit scenes of man-rape. but the story was really good in the sense that it tried to delve into the psyche of the persona. although medyo bitin yung pag-exploit nung experiences ni markova, i'd say it turned out pretty well.

one comment though... who thought of putting loren legarda into that flick? la lang.

Goonie, this film is based on a true story. Maybe they want to put Loren Legarda in that film coz it really happened that she interviewed Markova.

[red_door8]

Originally posted by archerguy
I watched it last Dec. 26 and it was a good movie, though I really think that children shouldn't be allowed to watch the flick because some scenes were really obscene, especially that man-rape by the Japanese which included oral sex, and the rape by the friend of Markova's brother. Jeffrey Quizon really deserved the award. I like that scene after he got beaten by his brother when he was seen acting like a gay in the swing...in front of the men he did a Miriam Quiambao-kind of getting up and strutted his way to the girls. And also when he jumped for joy after his brother's death. Hehe. Dun sa last part when he was dancing in the stage he looked like Chynna Cojuangco. Galing niya talaga. The biggest shock was LOREN LEGARDA...I can't believe she was even nominated as best actress! Talk about bad taste.

Ngek! Nominated pala si Loren Legarda sa Film Fest.Di ko alam yon ah! I think that she should not be nominated as best actress. Her performance was not good to be nominated as one.

[angelicDAW]

it's funny how loren legarda can't act EVEN AS A REPORTER! her nods (nods na lang nga ha) are so unnatural, but then again, she's great at the impeachment hearing. hehe!

anyway, the movie is okay. yun na yun, okay. it lacked an "ump!" in it, if you know what i mean. but i should definitely give credit to all the quizons for their acting!

[chino]

i watched spirit warriors and markova on the last day of the filmfest. the glorietta lobby and cinemas looked deserted, a far cry from the fiesta atmosphere and overflow crowd days before the bombing. kawawa naman ang movie industry!

but watching markova is enough reason to cheer up! gil portes impressed me with this one. the film is far from being grand, not an epic with the proverbial "a cast of thousands" . but it is commendable just the same. i liked the flashback scenes from the 30s to the post war era in particular. the effort to re-create that period was evident. good job overall! however it was pretty much downhill from there even with my favorite senator in it. the present day scenes really looked anti-climactic!

aside from the minor historical inconsistencies that were earlier pointed out, heto pa: the NHI marker at the entrance of the japanese generals' hq (hindi man lang tinakpan!), the lightbulbs in the background as eric & company where whisked away in a military truck (wala yatang ilaw noong giyera!) and eric looked young for his "age" during the kenkoy & rosing shoot. that was mid-70s! if markova is 73 today, minus 25, he must be around 48 by then. dapat pinatanda si eric or pinabata si dolphy. but in spite all of these, markova is still worth watching!

forget that other than being a sex slave, markova did not go through the standard horrors of war (people running for their lives, hiding and starving and all). dolphy and sons alone were such a visual treat! talented performers all! and watching jeffrey can be very nostalgic. it was like watching the young dolphy during his sampaguita days. he's the revelation here.

[scatterbrain]

I LIKED THIS MOVIE. dolphy is a very very good actor... i can see my gay lolo in him! that's why i can't accept the fact that Johnny Delgado beat him for the Best Actor Award! grabe, Johnny went berserk in some scenes in "Tanging Yaman" while Dolphy was consistently consistent in "Markova"!!! WALA, DINAYA SI MANG DOLPHY!!!!

[red_door8]

Originally posted by scatterbrain
I LIKED THIS MOVIE. dolphy is a very very good actor... i can see my gay lolo in him! that's why i can't accept the fact that Johnny Delgado beat him for the Best Actor Award! grabe, Johnny went berserk in some scenes in "Tanging Yaman" while Dolphy was consistently consistent in "Markova"!!! WALA, DINAYA SI MANG DOLPHY!!!!

I agree with you scatterbrain! Dapat nanalo si Dolphy ng Best Actor award sa MMFF. Super natural yung acting niya. Tapos, bilib din ako kay Gil Portes. He is one talented director!

[Mister Dean]

Originally posted by archerguy
I watched it last Dec. 26 and it was a good movie, though I really think that children shouldn't be allowed to watch the flick because some scenes were really obscene, especially that man-rape by the Japanese which included oral sex, and the rape by the friend of Markova's brother. Jeffrey Quizon really deserved the award. I like that scene after he got beaten by his brother when he was seen acting like a gay in the swing...in front of the men he did a Miriam Quiambao-kind of getting up and strutted his way to the girls. And also when he jumped for joy after his brother's death. Hehe. Dun sa last part when he was dancing in the stage he looked like Chynna Cojuangco. Galing niya talaga. The biggest shock was LOREN LEGARDA...I can't believe she was even nominated as best actress! Talk about bad taste.

I agree with archerguy on that kids statement. I watched the film at Glorietta One, and there were two children beside me. During the part where Jeffrey's Markova was being beaten up by his brother, the two kids (one couldn't have been more than seven years old) were laughing! I was appalled. I hardly think this was the kind of movie that people should take children to, and I was fuming at the parents who dragged their kids in to watch the film, probably thinking that, since it was Dolphy, it was going to be funny. And the kids laughed even more during the rape of Eric's Markova. I was aghast!

As for the film itself, I walked out because it dragged for me, pun not intended. And that opening sequence totally lost me at the start. I wonder where Portes got the idea of a woman in a red dress walking against a dull grayish-brown city backdrop? Hmmm... well, she did look limp and (Schindler's) listless.

[claudja]

Kung acting ni Dolphy ang pag-uusapan,he was at BEST when he did "Ang Tatay Kong Nanay" with Nino Muhlach at directed by
Lino Brocka.Nothing great ang MARKOVA!
Ginawa lang passport ni "Erica" ang libreng lovescenes nya with 2 men!!!I'm sure!!!!

[Noel Vera]

Originally posted by claudja
Kung acting ni Dolphy ang pag-uusapan,he was at BEST when he did "Ang Tatay Kong Nanay" with Nino Muhlach at directed by Lino Brocka.

I tend to agree. I think that was Dolphy's best performance, except for moments here and there in his comedies (some of them by Chaning Carlos, who has a short but wonderful scene in Markova).

[pyket]

mister dean: the girl in the red dress scene sa simula... uhm... err... stupid innocent question: hindi mo alam na si eric quizon yon? (bewildering lang yung statement mo eh)

i've posted thrice na sa thread na to (yata). pero i don't really think dolphy did a THAT good a job at it as some of you claim. i may be wrong --- probably due to the fact that i've never really watched dolphy. pero there was nothing special about his portrayal of dempsey. ewan ko ha... the people talaga who added dimension to the character of dempsey were jeffrey and eric. dolphy was the comic relief (of course). pero, for me, parang abrupt shifts yung characterizations ng 3 markovas. especially between eric and dolphy. time might be able to do that, pero i don't really think it was supported that much sa film. maybe it was left for the audience to do that link --- suspend your disbelief, 'ika nga.

problems that were irritating for me:

1) yung mga may-i-come-back-into-the-past nostalgic interaction scenes ni dolphy. it was a nice touch with jeffrey nung simula, pero something about it bothered me na sa mga successive ones. siguro nga dahil na-link ko yung comic relief kay dolphy, na medyo naka-off sa mga scenes na pinasukan niya...

2) yung lack of details talaga costume-wise, prop-wise, even dialogue-wise (naku puro -wise... strunk & white will kill me... heheheheh).

fine, the end is didactic with dolphy's last lines (as with most other filipino films), pero i think it was a good point naman nga talaga. something like: "nagpapakatotoo... ang tingin naman sa amin --- nagkukunwari." just a thought...