Lovebirds + Sagwan (2009/Water Bearer DVDs)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C     Extras: C-     Features: C

 

 

The newest releases from Water Bearer include two new gay narrative films from Philippines, an occasional source of imports for the company.  Lovebirds is a comedy about a young man named Mario who lives with his strict mother, but is gay and things become complicated his Internet friend from Spain Alexis comes to visit.  The mother is unhappy, the father caught in the crossfire and the neighbors shocked.  Ronaldo Bertubin’s problem is that the intimate moments show up like bad music videos, breaking up the storyline.

 

In addition, the comedy comes at the expense of character development and we do not learn enough about the morals of the area either.  It is not bad in parts, but it is just too inconsistent to be memorable and lacks focus.

 

Monti Parungao’s Sagwan has its own mixed situations as Alfred wants to be with his mute girlfriend Cecilia and another man, maybe even both at once, but he does not know.  He is also a male hooker himself as well as a boatman (tough economy?) and you have other people running around having gay sex too.  Unfortunately, this gets silly with more sex scenes (of sorts) than storytelling and the only heterosexual discourse is either one that mixes gay sex or one involving rape, so this work has its own issues and limits.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is a little weak on each from their digital video shoots, including detail issues, aliasing and limits in Video Black, while the Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo in both is barely so with location audio issues and other flaws despite some good audio on each.  Extras include a trailer on each disc for each release, but that is all.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo