I love and hate arthouse movies. I love them because, at their best, they really make you think, and they stay with you for a very long time; your mind comes back to them every now and then as you see vestiges of their truth in your own life every now and then. I remember films like ‘Under the Skin’ by Jonathan Glazer, ‘Upstream Color’ by Shane Caruth, Whammy Alcazaren’s ‘Islands,’ and Timmy Harn’s ‘Dog Days.’ I hate arthouse films because they really try my patience; by deviating heavily from the principles of traditional narratives, the stories of these movies meander aimlessly, implying maybe a thread of a larger tapestry but not really getting there until the end, if at all.
And Dominic Bekaert’s ‘An Errand’ is just such a film. At 83 minutes, the film is shorter than most full-length features these days, but the movie’s narrative sprawls out at a slow pace, much like the protagonist’s eponymous errand to fetch an expensive branded shirt and a can of pills from Manila to bring to his shady boss in Baguio. Moroy (Sid Lucero) is the driver to Art Acuna’s lawyer, an unnamed, hot-tempered man who is having an affair with a younger woman (Elora Espano). ‘An Errand’ zooms in on the tiny world of Moroy as he must deal being in an enclosed space (the lawyer’s car) with his boss and his mistress. When he’s with them, he hears their interactions, must live with it in his head, or if the lawyer is working, he picks up whatever bits and traces of it he (and us, as the audience) can piece together.
In-between, Moroy is hanging out at the driver’s waiting lounge, where he listens to the stories of other drivers and bodyguards, including the urban legend of Rex (Eric Kelly), a driver who makes a harsh realisation of his own boss, as told by Ben (Nanding Josef), a senior driver of an old woman, who seems to gamble a lot and has a lot of court cases.
All of these characters orbit around each other and create a dazzling tale of a world that may or may not be dark and sinister. Bekaert keeps his point-of-view small, only from within the purview of Moroy and Moroy hardly crosses the line. To amplify this, Bekaert keeps his framing tight and cluttered. He either composes each shot with Moroy and the other characters trapped within a confined space (a car, the driver’s waiting lounge) and when he does expand the view, he leaves very little space for the characters to move around (like in one scene when Moroy delivers a bag to the lawyer, he has to walk around a swimming pool that occupies 80% of the frame). This excellent use of mis-en-scene, coupled with Michael Benedicto’s musical score underlines the film’s eerie meditation of the lives of people on the periphery of power.
There are set ups here for classic tropes – does the driver make a move for the mistress, does the driver turn to the police with what little he knows, is the driver an undercover cop or a man with an axe to grind – but the film never turns there. It plays with our understanding of this dramatic situation, of these characters, of our imagined understanding of this milieu and shakes us up.
Because as much as we’d like to put meaning behind the mistress’ gift of a branded Mona Lisa shirt to her lawyer boyfriend, as much as we want to believe that Moroy’s errand back to Manila – the very cause of this seemingly abrupt existential crisis – nothing really does, as arthouse films often do.
There’s no catharsis here; no sudden revelations; no grand epiphany about the nature of this sick and twisted world. The audience’s desire for something to happen might be the point to the exercise. And the moment the legend somehow merges with the mundane world of Moroy, it does not give us the ending we are craving for, but it allows our imaginations to spark and dream for change.
And for an arthouse film, this is just what it is supposed to do. It’s exactly the kind of film I was hoping to see in Cinemalaya.
My Rating:
An Errand is now showing! Check showtimes and buy tickets here.
This year, don’t miss Cinemalaya Bente: Loob, Lalim, Lakas happening from August 2-11, 2024! Witness another stellar lineup of Filipino stories that will move you and showcase the brilliance of Philippine cinema. Follow the Cultural Center of the Philippines and Cinemalaya for updates!
