In a scene reminiscent of Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels in which a director of slapstick comedies decides to pivot his career to drama only to find what people need most when they’re down is to laugh their troubles away, Jaya and Arnel put on their comedy act for people who had their land stolen by developers after their homes were devastated by Super Typhoon Yolanda. These people who have lost everything get to enjoy a little levity and Jaya gets to perform for a captivated audience. In the midst of heartache and worry, sometimes you just need a moment to laugh.
There is a lot of heartache within Asog and its laughs never cut that heartache short. We're never laughing at the characters. We laugh because we, like them, find it is all we can do in the face of tragedy. One of the most poignant performances of the film comes from Ricky Gacho Jr. as Cyrus. He surprises you because at the beginning of the film he's played for laughs, but as his history is revealed and his hardships are made known, his journey flips our ideas about him on their heads. We see his humanity and why Jaya loves him in the few scenes he has when he is not with them.
Asog revels in all its characters' individual stories, which may be the one detriment to the film as a whole. There are pieces of each narrative thread strewn throughout the film, and it’s hard to know what is what at first. It is difficult to understand how the parable of the Crab King will connect with Jaya's stories of their childhood, or to know how the story of the people of Sicogon will connect with anything that came before. The stories are scattered and fragmented. The shifts are jarring and seemingly have no flow from one to the other at times. If you were not paying attention while there was voice over, you might be lost when it returns.
Yet, for all of the confusion and switching of gears, the threads do come together in the end. Everything is brought back and meaning is given to everything that came before. So even if the start is muddled, the execution is brilliant. This narrative has a beautiful bow.
The story would not have that beautiful bow without the beautifully talented Rey Alcao. Alcao, playing a version of themselves, has incredible comedic timing. Whether it’s a pratfall or a deliciously cutting remark, they have one of those faces that comes alive. They can convey the most complex shifts from laughter to sadness and back to laughter with the greatest of ease. It is an incomparable performance.
It’s rare to have a film that understands the balance of reality and humor.
Asog will make you laugh: There is a scene where a little girl wants to "test" a teddy bear and after a ludicrously long test hug, decides it is not the bear for her. Asog will make you cry: Jaya explains how grief can, should, and will stay with someone for their entire life as they try and comfort Arnel after Arnel's father rejects him. Asog has scenes of Filipinos describing their realities, too. Several people that play themselves break down a bit as they describe how hard it has been to attempt to put their lives back together after Super Typhoon Yolanda. Asog is a film that contains so much, but never lets it get out of hand or beyond the filmmaker's abilities to bring it all together.
As a hybrid film it succeeds both as entertaining and informative. It sheds light on a worldwide problem while also being unapologetically about a place and a people. It is a terrific film that should be widely seen with information that should be more widely known.
