This year, Cinema One Originals, ABS-CBN’s leading cable channel’s well-received annual independent film festival, continues its vision of hosting bold, new ideas from the independent scene to a mainstream audience. Since its inception in 2005, the festival has aimed to give a platform to veteran and upcoming Filipino filmmakers with unorthodox concepts rarely seen or explored in the big screen.
The festival has seen the birth of important Filipino films like Sigried Barros-Sanchez’ Ang Anak ni Brocka, Dennis Marasigan’s Sa North Diversion Road, Jerrold Tarog’s Confessional, Sigried Andrea Bernardo’s Lorna, Eduardo Dayao’s Violator, Antoinette Jadaone’s Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay and That Thing Called Tadhana, and Dan Villegas’ Changing Partners.
In its 14th -year exhibition, the chosen films in this year’s festival zoom in on what it takes to be human—flawed yet still remarkable. Each selected entry is described to create a dialogue on the very fabric that permeates through every viewer’s humanity—the perfection in its imperfection—true to its tagline, “I am Original.”
Tony Labrusca plays the role of Badger, an ambitious male gymnast with a dark past.
This year saw the sophomore offering of filmmaker Joseph Abello in the dark thriller, drama, Double Twisting, Double Back. The film interestingly captures unchartered territories onscreen, by giving due focus to the inner workings of a national athlete in gymnastics.
Gerald Zion, more known as Badger (played by Tony Labrusca) dreams of making a comeback in the world of gymnastics and penetrating the national team once again in hopes of competing for the Olympics. This could only be done by him leaving a comfortable life of commissions and looming promotion as a quota-hitting salesman. Then there’s Wasi (played by Joem Bascon), a wise, obnoxious man with an unapologetic thirst for money and women.
Joem Bascon plays the personification of the lead’s inner demons in his best performance yet.
On paper, the film’s premise offered an unabashed depiction of the physicality and emotional push-and-pull when one attempts to make it into this field, which somehow displaces Wasi’s character in the narrative. And yet, midway through the establishment of both characters, Abello boldly reveals that the seemingly disparate characters, as they were introduced in the first few frames of the film, are actually one and the same. This interesting move tremendously shifted the narrative—transcending from its physical, sports film tropes into a high-octane psychological dissection of Badger—a troubled young man battling with split personalities.
“Double twisting double back” in artistic gymnastics parlance refers to a complicated routine among athletes. But the film maximizes this as a symbolic representation of the ups and downs of Badger’s battle with his inner demons—slowly unearthing his troubled past resulting into his current broken state.
From efforts of outsmarting his sex-starved alter-ego in the beginning, Badger ultimately gets lured into the idea of living in harmony with his deranged “person” and reconciling their contradicting beliefs and difference of views but this only got him deeper into madness, with one of them trying to claw out and gain control over the other.
Male gymnastics, psychological disorders, and even obsession to sex are rare touchpoints in local filmmaking and yet, Abello churned a gripping depiction of all these into a rousing hour-and-a-half-long film. Faulty and stretched scenes in the latter part of the storyline, particularly the numerous depictions of Wasi’s unquenchable thirst for sex could have been established a little less jarringly and non-repeatedly but is forgivable, no small thanks to the interesting use of colors and music and its minimal but effective roster of actors.
Young newcomer Labrusca, in his second outing, shows verve, promise and depth. Labrusca embodies the meek and ambitious dreamer struggling to emerge victorious from his dark side and succeeds in doing so by portraying this journey to darkness. Taking on this role only amplifies his celebrity and maturity as an artist. In many aspects, including his apparent gymnastics roots, the role is perfectly crafted for Labrusca. Bascon, on the other hand, gives his best performance yet with his subtle yet impactful portrayal of the personification of Badger’s inner demons and the frailties of his humanity, buried in the deep recesses of his brain.
Double Twisting Double Back, of course, could easily be likened to foreign counterparts, Black Swan by Darren Aronofsky and even Fight Club by David Fincher, but it stands on its own by its bold choices and is easily one of the biggest films to come out from this year’s festival.
