A young man unwillingly becomes embroiled in a terrorist plot in Cavite, a low-budget digital video project from Filipino-American co-writers/co-directors Ian Gamazon and Neill Dela Llana. The film, shot with a jittery hand-held camera that is almost constantly in motion, opens with a panic-stricken man bringing a bomb onto a Manila bus, then cuts to San Diego, where Adam (Gamazon) is working nights as a security guard and seems to be wasting his life away before he gets a call from his mother
in the Philippines, telling him he needs to come home. He's sent off by a protracted transcontinental telephone argument with his American girlfriend, but things get much worse for Adam when he lands in Manila. His mother doesn't arrive to pick him up, and he soon discovers that someone has slipped a package containing a cell phone into his backpack. The phone rings, he picks it up, and his life is changed forever. On the other end of the line, a sinister voice tells Adam that his mother and sister are being held hostage, that his every move is being watched, and that if he doesn't do exactly as the voice tells him, his family will be killed. As he's led on a grisly tour of the impoverished Cavite region, Adam, a lapsed Muslim, soon realizes that his tormentor is a member of the notorious Abu Sayyaf terrorist group, which is fighting the Philippine government to get Muslim control of the southern section of the country. While sending him through his mysterious "assignment," the caller mocks Adam for his American ways, and his lack of awareness of his own culture. Cavite was selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art for inclusion in New Directors/New Films in 2006. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi
Though the film seldom deviates from its thriller format, Gamazon and Dela Llana astutely weave in matters of political, cultural and religious importance, elevating Cavite well above mere genre.
Enhanced by the you-are-there immediacy of a hand-held digital camera, Cavite works up a visceral potency that overleaps the credibility gaps in the omniscient-terrorist device.
Suffers from a ceaselessly roving camera and overuse of shaky handhelds, as well as even less successful editing tropes, and some very fake-looking blood.
Arbitrarily arranged and awfully acted... proof positive that well-meaning creative wishes and savvy, low-fi merging of production means and narrative concept doesn't automatically produce heady results.
The budget for this film is one of those miniscule amounts when compared to a studio film, which just goes to show it's not how much you spend to make a movie, but what you put into it.
Cavite will go down in history as a classic of no-budget filmmaking, making such ingenious use of bare resources that it's a wonder the movie is an effective, even thoughtful thriller.
A thrilling and scary ride through the side streets of a third world that is rarely seen in the movies, and carries a revolutionary message that is frightening in its political implications.
Gamazon is a capable actor for this hard tour. He and Dela Llana filmed with the kind of brave hustle and bustle that plows vividly through glib touches, repetition, razzle effects and shocks that whomp us hard.
a fresh bid for indie-thriller cred....[but] watching Gamazon and Dela Llana charge through their limitations is a bit like watching a sprinter run in clogs.
The film is a tender, unflinching look at the brutal conditions of life in the Philippines, its sympathy for its accidental subjects intertwined with a flexible, on-the-fly mode of filmmaking.
With what they had to work with, it's a great start. Definitely could've been edited more and some of the dialogue was redundant. Do we really need an explanation for the drink being served in a bag. We get it. There were a few other scenes like that, and the whole girlfriend conflict so was not needed, and again
redundant. Ian you've come a long way from "Mack and Mona", but you were definitely a better actor in "lil' bastard."
July 16, 2007
leonora a
I know I am late doing this. But I am still compeled to make a comment. I have visited Manila, and Cebu. I am an American married to a Filipina. This is a reality most Americans never see unless they have been in the military or peace corps and spent time in the P.I. I have walked around in squatters camps and
personally smelled the stinch or the garbage in some streets. Yet the Filipino people survive and can be very friendly to visitors to their country. In the US we are very material minded. Therefore facing reality is not something we are mature enough to accept. We take for granted all we are blessed with. Surprising that even when you ride a jeepney. You can pass your fare from one rider to another and nobody tries to keep or steal the fair. They like many Mexican people are extremely hard working people. They are frank to the point and do not play games like many other people from other countries (like ours) do.
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