Metro Manila (2013)
Directed by Sean Ellis
Looking for a brighter future in metropolitan Manila, Oscar Ramirez and his family leave their miserable life in the rice terraces of Banaue, in the northern Philippines. In the sweltering capital, where all kind of perils lurk in every corner, Oscar catches a lucky break when he is offered a steady work for an armored truck company and the senior officer Ong takes him under his wing.
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What critics compared Metro Manila to
Sean Ellis's first two features, Cashback and The Broken (the former expanded from an Oscar-nominated short) were self-regarding twaddle, so it's good to report that his third film pulls its creative finger out and starts to justify some of the praise poured too early upon the emergent film-maker.
Although "Metro Manila" reps a departure from Ellis' earlier charming romantic comedy "Cashback" and psychological horror exercise "The Broken," it shares with those previous pics an obvious sense of formal craftsmanship.
It all started with the UK native's 2004 short movie "Cashback" which won a slew of awards before nabbing the Oscar for best live action short.
Best known for the glossy, explicit 2004 romantic comedy Cashback, Ellis arrives in the Philippines as a tourist of its seediest elements, and the slick exoticism of his photography recalls the Bangkok of Nicolas Winding Refn’s widely (and unfairly) derided noir Only God Forgives.
After being Oscar-nominated for his 2004 short Cashback, and having made several English-language films, he decided to branch out and shoot Metro Manila as a tourist abroad, completely in the Tagalog language.
Ellis crafts a number of visually effective scenes reminiscent of the stellar artistry wielded on his underrated debut Cashback.