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Greater than another movie that involves thoughts, Rafael Manuel’s “Filipiñana” faucets into one thing that I’ve all the time discovered inherently sinister about golf programs: Sprawling gardens of solipsism that invite gamers to compete in opposition to themselves (and provide masters of the universe a really perfect surroundings to affirm their standing as they dealer offers with one another between holes), they’re so elegantly imposed upon the land that it’s simple to neglect that one thing else was ever there within the first place. The method evokes an uncanny type of double terraformation — 150 acres of earth mulched right into a extra peaceable and better-manicured model of itself the place individuals can neglect how bizarre it’s to see random sandpits and excellent circles of grass.
Obliviating the previous is all the time a contented byproduct of gentrification, however with golf programs that all the time appears to be a extra deliberate a part of the agenda. It’s no surprise People love them a lot, or that we’ve left them behind as a parting reward for a few of the nations we’ve colonized. Not “right here’s one thing to recollect us by” a lot as “right here’s one thing that can assist you neglect what it was like earlier than we acquired there.”
I don’t know what number of golf programs there have been within the Philippines when America relinquished management over it in 1946, however at this time there are between 30 and 40 within the neighborhood of Manila alone. One among them, the Luisita Golf Course and Nation Membership, was constructed over a former sugar plantation the place 14 hanging staff had been massacred in 2004. Manuel is imprecise in regards to the historical past of the fictional Alabang Nation Membership the place his languidly unnerving “Filipiñana” takes place (although the backstory of membership president Dr. Palanca does finally snap into focus), however the director shoots the place with a Haneke-like take away that makes each member, caddie, and Chinese language vacationer really feel like they’re conspiring to bury an terrible secret of some form.
The one potential exception is 17-year-old Isabel (Jorrybell Agoto), who’s not too long ago moved to the massive metropolis from the northern area of Ilokos and located a job as Alabang’s latest tee lady. I really feel like most individuals wouldn’t be snug enjoying at a spot the place underpaid teenage women — dressed like flight attendants in PanAm-inspired turquoise uniforms — are compelled to take a seat inches away from their backswing between strokes, however the patriarchal tradition at Dr. Palanca’s takes pleasure within the many alternative ways in which golf permits the wealthy to lord over the working class. The members don’t care in regards to the sport (most of them cheat with out considering), however they love that it requires a lot labor for them to get pleasure from. They love that it permits them to make sport of their nation’s enduringly colonialist spirit.
The sly and needling “Filipiñana” invitations us to see Alabang from a number of totally different factors of view, if solely in order that we are able to really feel all of them sludging collectively below the brutal Manilan warmth. We enter the membership as a bunch of disembodied overseas vacationers, bemused by the band of blind musicians who welcome each new company, and the rhythmic manner that everybody on the driving vary swings their golf equipment in good sync (Manuel cites Jacques Tati as a significant affect, however the comedian interludes have a satirical lightness extra paying homage to “L.A. Story” than “Playtime”). We additionally expertise it by means of the eyes of a privileged, light-skinned, and unyieldingly skeptical expat named Clara (Carmen Castellanos), whose fatcat uncle is determined for her to maneuver again from New York. She talks to the caddies with respect, and is clearly repulsed by every part the membership represents, however can’t fairly carry herself to voice her considerations.
After which there’s younger Isabel, the closest factor we now have to a protagonist, who’s a bit extra decided to get to the foundation of her disquiet. Extra composed than Lucrecia Martel’s “La Ciénaga” however equally decided to weaponize its languidness, Manuel’s narcotized movie spends the brunt of its time following the not so naive Ilokan lady as she watches Alabang sweat out its sins. She pokes on the mangos that fall on the course, spies on Dr. Palanca as he canoodles along with his private caddie within the shade, and stares on the imported pine timber which are planted across the fairways. Each time certainly one of them dies, one other is just planted the place it stood; the golf membership doesn’t have a previous, and if not for its warmth, it wouldn’t have a way of place both, as Filipiñana slyly positions globalism as an act of forgetting unto itself. (One remaining however unavoidable level of reference: the work of Jia Zhangke, who joined this film as an govt producer within the weeks earlier than its Sundance premiere.)
Finally, Isabel is tasked with returning a misplaced golf membership to Dr. Palanca, which spurs her nearer into the stomach of the beast, and nearer to the supply of her nagging unrest. Her quest isn’t gradual a lot as completely narcotized, as Manuel is much less excited about producing drama or suspense than he’s in crystallizing the air of inaction that permits Alabang to be such a lucid — and torpid — show of colonial torpor at work. Each 4:3 shot is framed to maximise the social verticality of the membership, and each sequence is edited to evoke the indolent power of a sizzling automotive on a sizzling summer season’s day. Nobody has the lifeforce required to battle again in opposition to the structural violence that retains this place buzzing. Nobody has the fireplace left over to inform off the pervy receptionist, or to complain once they get hit within the face by a ball from the driving vary, or to appoint somebody moreover Dr. Palanca within the membership’s upcoming election. Everybody on the membership chooses to be as blind as its band of musicians.
In that gentle, the truth that Manuel’s satire operates with all of the subtlety of a Ruben Östlund movie may very well be argued as extra of a function than a bug, as “Filipiñana” takes pains to leverage the obviousness of its state of affairs in opposition to the inaction that it conjures up. As viewers, nonetheless, that friction isn’t fairly sufficient to maintain our consideration, and it isn’t till the climactic scene that Isabel’s story distills a way of urgency from the nebulous ambiance that surrounds it — that the political lastly assumes private weight. It’s too little too late for a movie that internalizes its characters’ wrestle to talk up for the previous, however “Filipiñana” not less than saves its most interesting stroke for final, as probably the most essential moments of its story unfold whereas the closing credit blithely scroll by, the ultimate moments of Manuel’s function debut acutely subverting the grammar of Western cinema to literalize Isabel’s relationship to her personal erasure.
Grade: B
“Filipiñana” premiered on the 2026 Sundance Movie Pageant. It’s presently looking for U.S. distribution.
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