Curacha is neither Lee nor Rono at their best and I don’t think any amount of reediting is going to save it. The film is full of disjointed sequences, heavy symbolism and endless philosophical discussions. And even after a second viewing I still can’t understand what the 1986 EDSA revolution against then President Ferdinand Marcos, and the various coups against his successor, Corazon Aquino, have to do with the story - does Curacha (Rosanna Roces) and her adventures stand for "Inang Bayan" (Mother Country)? Does her first name - Corazon - link her with President Aquino, possibly the most naïve woman in Philippine politics?

There are questionable details: a beauty contest for children is conducted in the middle of a revolution; nightclub shows and whorehouses continue to operate despite the violence outside; and all hospitals are drastically underlit (the better, I presume, to achieve a film noir atmosphere). The various coup d’etats are staged with varying degrees of inauthenticity; even the dirt smeared on the faces of the homeless people look like applied makeup.

Granted a lot of this can be forgiven by saying this is a stylized film, a nonrealistic, nonlinear film. But a film stylized or not should have a central performance that will hold the pieces together, that will give the monstrous hybrid (cobbled from films by Federico Fellini, Ishmael Bernal, Luis Bunuel) life. Rosanna Roces, a veteran of numerous cheap sex flicks, might have provided the bitter wit and energy; but as directed by Rono, she turns in a limp-wristed performance.

When I run into people asking if the
movie is any good, they brush aside
my comments that it’s slow and
doesn’t really go anywhere and ask:
"Does Roces really show her boobs?"

Lee writes funny dialogue. When the film begins, Roces wakes up and says: "My breasts are like Ermita; my vagina, Quezon Avenue." His concept of Curacha is of someone who’s seen everything and done everything - who’s bored to death with life. Unfortunately, Roces is too convincing: she talks in a flat monotone and rarely cracks her face more than a millimeter throughout.

She has brought Lee’s concept to its logical conclusion: if she’s seen and done everything, why go on with life? (Why, if you carry this one step further, bother finishing the movie?) Curacha is too exhausted, too passive, too dull a character to carry what feels like a two-hour-plus film.

Roces’s performance suffers even more when she is put side-by-side with the real thing, talentwise - as she pops pills into her mouth, Myrna (Jacklyn Jose) appears. It isn’t clear whether Jose’s character is real or a figment of Curacha’s drugged imagination (if Curacha saves Myrna by putting her in a boat, is she just saving some figment of her imagination?), but let’s set that flaw aside (we only have so much space).

Jacklyn Jose’s character is markedly similar to Roces’s - the same suicidal tendencies, the same need for escape through drugs (Roces at one point admits it was Jose who introduced her to pill-popping), the same cynical view of life. But Jose pulls it off - what is dull and contrived when Roces plays it feels real in Jose’s hands. (Jose, it goes without saying, is a terrific actress; she was good in Rono’s earlier Private Show and in Lino Brocka’s Macho Dancer.)

Rosanna Roces, a veteran of numerous
cheap sex flicks, might have provided
the bitter wit and energy; but as
directed by Chito Rono, she turns
in a limp-wristed performance.

Roces follows directions literally and, as a result, literally saps herself of energy. Jose realizes, through sheer imagination, the crucial difference - that a character with a death wish isn’t necessarily lifeless - she is passionately, wholeheartedly in love with death. This passion informs her entire performance; it gives her a special glow that outshines everyone around her, including the star.

But Lee and Rono shouldn’t be concerned with any of this; Curacha is shaping up to be an enormous hit. When I run into people asking if the movie is any good, they brush aside my comments that it’s slow and doesn’t really go anywhere and ask: "Does Roces really show her boobs?" "Yes," I say, facing the boob before me, "one on each side."

Lee and Rono should, however, expect a less forgiving attitude from people who want some drama, some reasonable semblance of a story and/or characters, some pathetic excuse to sit down and watch the movie. The film’s final scene takes a page out of Ishmael Bernal’s great Manila By Night and closes with a sunrise on Luneta Park. However, it tries to do one better than Bernal. A sampaguita vendor tries to sell Curacha some flowers; she gives the girl a thick wad of hundred-peso bills and asks: "How old do you think I am?"

"Twenty," the girl replies.

"You’re good at counting," she tells the girl, and swallows a fatal dose of narcotics. The people about the park (Curacha included) come together to stand before the flagpole and sing the national anthem. When they finish, she collapses and dies; they ignore her corpse (!) and walk away, leaving the park attendants behind, appropriately, to sweep away the trash.