Rafael Manuel spent seven or eight years developing “Filipinana,” his debut feature about a teenage girl working at an elite Manila country club — years before HBO’s “The White Lotus” turned the luxury resort satire into prestige television gold.
“I get the comparisons, of course, because ‘White Lotus’ is one of the biggest series ever but I wouldn’t say that it’s a direct influence at all,” Manuel tells Variety ahead of the film’s European premiere at the Berlinale. “I think, formally, they’re very, very different. And also the fact that ‘White Lotus’ has to do a lot more with Western protagonists in the East.”
The film won the Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at Sundance and has been acquired for North American distribution by Kino Lorber.
Set against a backdrop of oppressive heat and drought, the narrative follows Isabel, a 17-year-old from the rural north who takes a job at an upscale country club outside Manila. As the newcomer explores the facility’s pristine grounds, she encounters an array of elite patrons — all attended to by the club’s servile staff. When Isabel attempts to return a misplaced golf club to the club’s patriarchal director, she delves deeper into the resort’s restricted areas, uncovering dark realities about the institution, the Philippines and her own history.
Manuel’s approach to narrative structure draws on literary and philosophical theory. “[Claude] Lévi-Strauss — one of my favorite writers — talks a lot about the two kinds of thought, there’s poetic thought, and then there’s grammatical and synthetic thought. And I think a lot in the world today, we’ve prioritized grammar and syntax over poetic thought. And for me, I was very interested in developing a narrative and then a plot that kind of balances both, and actually even gives more importance to poetic thought,” he says.
The director distinguishes between two types of clarity in filmmaking: “There’s narrative and narrative clarity and plot clarity, but there’s also emotional clarity. And for me, I think emotional clarity is a lot more important. Because, you know, like for example, like in a Hollywood film where it’s all, like, very contingent on narrative and plot. As soon as you miss one plot point, the whole thing kind of falls apart. Whereas if you focus more on emotional clarity, then, even if people miss certain plot points or things, they’re very much anchored in the film still, because what’s clear is what the characters are feeling and what the world is making you feel.”
Manuel’s executive producer and mentor, Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke, proved instrumental in shaping the filmmaker’s approach. Manuel was the final protege in the Rolex Arts Initiative, where he spent two years working closely with Jia. “In ‘The World,’ Jia tells a story while a city is being deconstructed in the background,” Manuel says. “What I’m trying to do as well with the golf course is bring about the Philippines’ or the world’s past, the present and the future, just in the time setting and in that environmental setting.”
Beyond the cinematic techniques, Manuel values the personal insights gained from the extended mentorship. “I got to spend a lot of time with Jia in between the shoots and the editing, and just spend a lot of personal time with him, and really just to get to be given an insight into his world and to how he lives his day-to-day life in between cinema, which is what we make cinema about. We make cinema about life and how we live life, and how we want to live life.”
For Manuel, the golf club setting serves a specific purpose in examining contemporary Filipino society. “I guess I just wanted to make violence more relatable,” Manuel says. “I’m sorry to say, but a lot of contemporary Philippine cinema exoticizes the poverty and the violence that exists in my country, so much so that I think it’s easy for an audience that is not at all related to these milieus that are portrayed to feel like they’re not culpable, or have no relation to the violence that they see on the screen.”
His approach reframes systemic violence in more universal terms. “It was really my goal to reframe this violence and to make it a bit more relatable to a more universal audience and to talk about how one does not need to be a murderer or rapist to be complicit in this kind of violence, that it’s enough to live silently and passively in an inherently violent system,” he says.
The film explores tensions between ambition and belonging without offering easy resolutions. “I really tried to not give the answers, because I don’t have any answers,” he says. “I think in the world today, it’s so easy to be pessimistic and to fall into this trap of inaction, that our actions won’t make a difference because of all the powers at play. Like Isabel in the film, I hope people are reminded that no matter how small, even the tiniest of actions have the power to create something new.”
As “Filipinana” prepares for its Berlinale screening, Manuel hopes to transport audiences from winter’s chill into the film’s oppressive tropical heat. “We made a very sensorial film, and hopefully we’re able to bring some of the heat from Manila to Berlin. I mean, it’s going to be very cold in Berlin, just like it was in Park City. And I think in a way, it’s very poetic for ‘Filipinana’ to be screened in the middle of winter in Berlin. I’m really hoping that we’re able to bring this heat and this humidity, which is so much a character of the film and so much responsible for the environment and the pacing of the film.”