Dark, elemental, fantastic softcore sex-drama unfairly reviewed here... | Silip: Daughters of Eve

essential PI bold | Silip: Daughters of Eve | Sarsi Emmanuelle, Mark Joseph

DVDs:


	• Silip: Daughters of Eve Sarsi Emmanuelle, Mark Joseph EMI Music Distribution (Pre-Release), 2007 view larger image
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...WHAT?

Silip (Elwood Perez, 1985)

Those who know Japanese film are most likely familiar with pinku, or "pinky violence", the odd Japanese film subculture that combines the hardboiled crime film and the softcore erotica genre. (Gate of Flesh, reviewed elsewhere in this issue, is one of the best-known early pinkies.) Filipino filmmakers, caught in a combination of awe at the success of pinku films in Japan and stress at working in a repressive regime, developed bomba, a Filipino version of the pinky. Silip is by far the best-known bomba film outside the Philippines. For the most part, this is because the movie is likely to cause its hapless viewer to sit there staring at the screen, drooling and shaking, and every once in a while shouting "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" at the top of his lungs. Silip is what would happen if Alejandro Jodorowsky tried to make a porn film. Or, alternately, what would happen if the Dark Brothers teamed up with Ruggero Deodato to film Let Me Tell Ya 'bout Cannibal Chicks. (I rush to add, after making those comparisons, that Ron Jeremy does not appear anywhere in this film.)

Bomba queens Maria Isabel Lopez (a former Miss Philippines who bears more than a passing resemblance to Jessica Alba) and Sarsi Emmanuelle star here as childhood friends gone very separate ways. Emmanuelle plays Selda, who went off to the big city and has become a party girl, while Lopez is Tonya, who stayed, became a religious fanatic, and now preaches a decidedly anti-male message to the villagers, after coming to believe that all men are devils. She believes this because she got dumped by Simon (Mark Joseph), the town's most eligible bachelor. The fact that he's married doesn't stop him from behaving like it, anyway. Things go along in the village as normal, with Tonya preaching and Simon servicing, until Selda comes back into town with her rich American boyfriend. The two womens' personalities, which have grown so different, clash until events bring the two of them together. (Once you see the movie, you'll understand the deep, deep irony inherent in that phrase.)

I should warn you right off the bat that Silip is not a movie for the faint of heart in any way. If it's possible for something to offend your sensibilities, this movie most likely contains it somewhere. The film opens with Simon butchering an ox over the protestations of the village's children (the area is locked in a drought, and the villagers need to eat). Depending on how you feel about such things, the butchering of the ox is actually one of the tamer of the film's controversial scenes. Tonya's anti-male harangues are in no way hypocritical, and she practices what she preaches, including mortification of a shocking and memorable type; the climax of the film contains a scene that makes Gaspar Noe's infamous "extreme" rape in Irreversible look like child's play; the religious are sure to be offended (if they aren't by everything else) as the film's intentionally flip resolution (which traces right back to that oppressive regime I mentioned in the first paragraph). And that's just a few examples; this is a difficult movie to watch. That said, for a slapdash, low-budget movie (bomba films are, in technical terms, far closer to American porn than Japanese pinkies, which are sometimes directed by big names and have lavish budgets; again, viz. the aforementioned Gate of Flesh), it's astoundingly well-made. The constant Jodorowsky comparisons are warranted not only on the dadaist nature of the progression of events and the weird images, but also in what Elwood Perez managed to do with a bunch of non-professional actors and a few thousand dollars. Almost no one involved with this movie had any production credits at all; even the four principals (Emmanuelle, Lopez, Joseph, and Myra Manibog, playig a young village girl who's in love with Simon) were acting in, at most, their third movies. That amateurism does surface in some cases, but that almost gives the film more of a cinema verite feel than most bargain-basement films have (and that, of course, makes everything that happens all the more disturbing). The cinematography, even on the faded third-generation print that seems to have been the master for the recent DVD release, is gorgeous; even Philippine deserts are something to behold. (Who knew the Philippines even had deserts?)

I've seen a number of bad reviews of this film by people who seem to have somehow gotten the idea this is a lesbian porn film. And yeah, I'll grant you, if you're looking for Deep Inside Sarsi Emmanuelle, you're going to have to look elsewhere. This flick covers a whole lot of genres-- drama, avant-garde, black comedy, sexploitation, a smattering of horror, and maybe a half-dozen others-- but it's certainly not a porn film. Caveat emptor. If you know what you're getting, it's very hard to look away from the screen, even though you will almost certainly want to quite often. *** ½

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Dark, elemental, fantastic softcore sex-drama unfairly reviewed here...

...by a number of semi-literate onanists who thought they were seeing and evaluating porn.

It's not porn.

And anyone who would try to buy porn on Amazon has to be a stone idiot, anyway - when one can get actual porn for free at the click of a mouse. I have seen a number of products like this get negative reviews from misguided morons who think that sexual content equals (or should) masturbation aid. Since there ISN'T any regular porn on Amazon, these cockroaches inevitably get routed to the films of Walerian Borowczyk or Joe D'Amato (who DID make straight up porn - but it's not available here).

The INTENDED audience for these releases by the likes of Cult Epics, Blue Underground, Mondo Macabro, etc. is a niche market of bizarre-world-cinema lovers whose demand must be fed with vintage grindhouse roughies, nunsploitationers, sleazy gialli, fake exploitation documenataries and whatever other neglected twisted gems a hundred years of cinema has left in its trail of slime.

If you're looking for porn here you are seriously internet-retarded. Please don't announce that to everyone by writing my-porn-didant-work reviews. Go away and seek help.

I wouldn't want to give away what happens in 'Silip' - but the first scene should give you some idea which side of the fence you're sitting on. Suffice it to say that if you can't abide your copious nudity and simulated fornicating spiked with shock moments, tragic circumstances, political incorrectness and sometimes questionable taste YOU ARE ALSO IN THE WRONG PLACE.

'Silip' has moments of artistic quality in which the imagery and potent primal elements recall Jodorowsky - although I wouldn't want to overstate the comparison. It also has moments when it would seem to be nothing more than a sex movie, as the film stops to linger on every coupling. Granted, the sex scenes ARE often the story in this particular context, but we are aware that there is a form at work that demands certain exploitable images. The story is strongly melodramatic, setting up tensions that we know can't pay off in any good way. This is well offset by the earthy extremity of it's themes and imagery - and whenever it threatens to degenerate into a potboiler, 'Silip's' wild streak comes, sometimes spectacularly, into play. Sometimes you can laugh at it, and sometimes you can feel it working on you - it can be exciting and uncomfortable. 'Silip' isn't the Holy Grail of cult movies, but it IS a gem, and it deserves an audience. Largely by virtue of it's brazenness 'Silip,' in some scenes, anyway, manages to fulfill artistic ambitions that go far beyond the scope of the average Skinemax dry-humper. These scenes could also be considered exploitative, but there is a directness and honesty to 'Silip' that allows it to get away with whatever it can't completely carry off. That it carries off as much as it does can possibly be attributed to nobody telling the filmmakers that they COULDN'T carry it off - so what we have here is a little marvel: trash with the actual heart of an art movie, that doesn't pretend to be more than it is, isn't afraid to be more than it should, and doesn't mind leaving a bitter taste. The softcore agenda is amply covered here, but there is much more than that going on, and that's from frame one.

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essential PI bold

In the Philippines, "bold" films are films that show a lot of skin. SILIP is one of the boldest of the bold. SILIP has nudity and violence galore. The opening scene, the real slaughter of a carabao with an ax, hints at what's coming. The dvd has both the original Tagalog version with English subtitles and an English dubbed version. The original with the mesmerizing soundtrack is superior.

SILIP ("peeping" in Tagalog) is a difficult film to categorize. At first glance, it looks like exploitative drive-in fare. Then the film gets under your skin. Is it saying something about the church? Is it sexist? Look at the barren landscape and all the blue. Is the blue supposed to simulate night or some twisted Garden of Eden? I'm struggling with two possible interpretations. Either SILIP is a polemic about the unnatural strictures placed upon women by men and the church, or a satire of rural life in the Philippines. My consideration of satire is partly based on the ad libbed scene where Ms. Emmanuelle chides real life good friend Ms. Lopez for not wearing skivvies.

Mondo Macabro is to be commended. I've been limping along with a VHS version, dubbed into English with Chinese subtitles. The dvd has some minor flaws, but is a vast improvement of the previous versions in circulation. The extras include an interview with Maria Isobel Lopez. She's articulate and still a stunner. I just wish they could have done a better job with the English subtitles. I'm guessing the translation was by an Aussie. That's the only way to explain the occasional jarring interjection of "bloody" into the subtitles.

If you like something different, and have a strong stomach, SILIP is worth a look.

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In the tradition of Japanese "Pink" cinema comes this shocking, violent and sex-filled movie that caused an outrage when it was screened at the Chicago Film Festival.

Starring the former Miss Philippines, the stunning Maria Isabel Lopez (in her most revealing role ever), SILIP - DAUGHTERS OF EVE is an eye-opening example of raw and savage filmmaking from one of the Philippines' most innovative directors, Elwood Perez.

Set in the beautiful and remote countryside of Ilongo, the story tells of three young women and their struggle to come to terms with their own sexuality against a background of religious oppression and male brutality.

Mondo Macabro is pleased to present a 2-disc edition of one of the most extraordinary movies ever released on DVD. SILIP - DAUGHTERS OF EVE has been a well-kept secret amongst collectors of arcane and extreme films, talked about in awed tones but rarely seen... until now! Presented completely uncut and uncensored, SILIP - DAUGHTERS OF EVE is the ultimate cult movie and guaranteed not to disappoint.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3