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A Conversation with Sean Ellis about exploring big ideas, mixing opera with Greek tragedy


Metro Manila
07 March 2014

Seeking a brighter future in megacity Manila, Oscar Ramirez and his family flee their impoverished life in the rice fields of the northern Philippines. But the sweltering capital’s bustling intensity quickly overwhelms them, and they fall prey to the rampant manipulations of its hardened locals. Oscar catches a lucky break when he’s offered steady work for an armored truck company and gregarious senior officer Ong takes him under his wing. Soon, though, the reality of his work’s mortality rate and the murky motives of his new partner force Oscar to confront the perils he faces in his new job and life.

In anticipation of the Blu-Ray and DVD home entertainment release of the BAFTA nominated Metro Manila, The Fan Carpet spoke with writer-director Sean Ellis about exploring big ideas, mixing opera with Greek tragedy and challenging himself and his audience.

 

 

Why a career in filmmaking? Was there that one inspirational moment?

Though I had always had an interest in film, I came from a photography background. My photography was very much influenced by film a so a lot of it is described as being cinematic. What happened is then is that I got the opportunity to direct pop videos. When I started off doing that I enjoyed it, but it was a big unworldly beast. It was kind of an odd thing and you’d just be making it up as you went along. I felt like I wasn’t in complete control of what was happening, and that was both interesting and scary. Then I thought well if I try to control it a bit more – if you write a script you are not just working on visuals. So you try and write a script with some dialogue and then you make a short film.

I have to say my first short film wasn’t very enjoyable, and I actually questioned whether it was something I really wanted to do. I wasn’t happy with fashion photography and so I was in this place where I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, nor was I sure where I wanted to go from there. I decided to do another short film which was Cashback.

I think I didn’t enjoy my first outing because I didn’t really know what I was doing to be honest. I was sort of making it up as I went along, and it can be quite a scary place. But it was with flashback that I felt like I had more in control with what I was doing, and that gave me a bit of room to enjoy the process. So after Cashback I thought that it was just first time jitters that made feel the way I did.

From there I just started to try and develop an idea in order to make my first feature, and as it turns out Cashback was the film that turned into a feature film. With Broken and now with Metro Manila I’m at a point where I now feel that I know what I want to say and I know what I am looking for as far as projects go. Before I was a little unsure as to what I wanted to do or say, but Metro Manila was the first film where I was in control of the story structure and I had control of the way that we filmed it and the way we put it together. Ultimately it is the film that I am most proud of.

 

 

From the film’s opening line about fate and destiny; man as being powerless, to faith in God and the camaraderie of men, you are confronting big ideas. These are ideas which we have to confront as people, and the film seeks to explore those.

There are aspects to a lot of the character’s lives in the film that we all encounter – religion, faith, destiny, and which one is right and which one plays its hand the most in our lives. Whilst I don’t know ultimately it was Jake’s own hand that played the bigger part in his destiny. So in some weird respect looking at what you just said, we are ultimately all responsible for our actions. There is no fate and there is no religion; there is only what we make it to be. Not that I ever consciously set out to make that film, but if you look at it now and you look at the story, it all becomes apparent that all of the fate and destiny being dealt with actually comes down to your own actions, morals and what you are prepared to do or not to do. Religion was something that was never in the script originally – it’s just found its way into the movie. 

In terms of religion, we hadn’t done that kind of research before we got there, but landing in the Philippines and discovering it is such a religious nation and that they place such importance on it, it couldn’t help but find its way into the movie. Talking to the actors about it, there’s a lot of stuff that they say “In God we trust”, and they do. So that started to find its way into the dialogue, along with the religious visual motifs, especially the Black Nazarene procession. As soon as I saw pictures of that we had to include it somehow.

I was very open when I was making the film. I would allow things to pass through me, all of those motifs which I would absorb and then bring to the film in order to give it an authenticity that I felt it needed. You must listen to the material, to the people surrounding you, to the location you are in and see it and not be too stubborn. You have to let the material filter on through into the script and give it time to breathe and grow, and that’s what I did.

 

It’s a little bit scary because you are giving up some of your control, but it was a very interesting and fulfilling process for me. I always felt that I was in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing, which is quite rare when you are making a film because you often feel as though you are banging your head against a brick wall.

Film is an interactive art form and Metro Manila you put is in a position to question the choices which involves us in the conversation of the characters. ? ?When we set about the film structure one of the things my co-writer Frank [E. Flowers] kept asking was, “What do the audience expect, and then what do they want?” Whilst they might seem like the same thing, they are two different things. So we would look at the scene and we would ask ourselves “What does the audience want in that scene? How do they want it to end and how are they expecting it to end?” We were trying to give the audience what they wanted but not in the way that they expected it. We would take another look at each scene and ask, “What do the audience want at the end of this scene and how do we give it to them in a way that they are not expecting?” We would try and turn stuff around so what they were expecting was going to happen but not in the way that they were expecting. Ultimately they get what they want and that comes from the development of the characters. In the end what you really want is for Oscar and his family to succeed. In a weird way it happens but not in the way that you expect. You can take it at every stage throughout the structure of the story and this is what we are doing. The idea was that then we’d always be leading the audience through the story, and never giving them the chance to make a choice outside of the structure.

When somebody who is watching a film says “I don’t get it; why don’t they just do this?” you’ve lost your audience. You’ve given them a way out of the films structure. So it was making sure all the boxes were closed, that they couldn’t get out, and that the choices that the characters made were always the same ones that the audience would make. This outcome is given to them the way they want, but not necessarily in the way that they expect, and that was how we set about building the structure of the film.? ?The use of opera reflects on the balance of the films comic and tragic moment’s, functioning as a musical cue for both the comedy and the tragedy.? ?It’s an interesting choice, but I looked at Ong and I said, “What would people want from him?” Again, give them what they want but not in a way that they expect. I thought here’s a guy who drives a truck all day. He puts on the radio, or he puts on a tape and what is the music that he’s listening to? For me I get a great sense of emotion when I watch opera, and the situation they are in is very emotional, so what I wanted was something that’s emotional. But how do I give that to people in a way that they don’t expect. Then I thought well Ong’s the kind of guy you wouldn’t expect to be listening to opera. So we wrote that scene where he says, “Music like that cleanses your soul.” To hear that from somebody who drives a truck every day, you think to yourself this guy’s got an angle, he’s interesting. Ultimately that harks back to the development of his character. He’s interesting; yes he has an angle, and yes, he’s kind of in the same place as Oscar – so is he going to use Oscar?

So there are all these things that come up and opera music almost harks back to a Greek tragedy in a weird way, which I thought that was an interesting concept. I always considered that Ong would die to his own music and that was another interesting concept to explore – this character loves this music but he will die to this music. It was one of those gifts that felt fitting and because it feels right you go with it.? ?The opening and closing moments of the film imbue it with an emphasis on storytelling. It is a wonderful self-reflective touch that pays homage to the cinematic art form.

I always believed in the ending of this film. It was what drove me, and to the point where even when I would tell people the synopsis I would get a little choked up and emotional. I knew it was going to be a challenge because with this ending you are tying up so many different loose ends, and you are trying to have them all climax at the same time. You have the now; you have the future and you have a letter from the present, which is written in the past about someone speaking about a perfect future. Then you have another backstory which is climaxing in parallel, and so you have all these things that are colliding with one another. You’ve got dialogue; you’ve got voiceover and you’ve got music. There are all these things I felt if I could get it right then it would be a very poetic, climactic and visual feast at the end of the film; a bittersweet ending that would in a weird kind of way leave you on the floor.

But for me there was no other way to end this film. It was a tough call in that respect to get that, but what I loved about the ending is that it’s “past tense, future perfect”, where Oscar would never sit in an armchair as an old man. I think that’s poetically beautiful.

What I love about filmmaking is that I really didn’t know how to do all of that. I thought how are we going to do this? How are we going to tie this up and how is it going to have this knockout emotional punch and yet be satisfying? Again going back to what I said earlier – give the audience what they want but not in a way they expect.

So it was very much a learning process for me, and also I have got to say it is Robin Foster’s beautiful score at the end there and also Richard Mettler’s incredible editing that tied those ends up into such an emotional final climactic act. It was the thing that drove me as a filmmaker, and I thought if that is the one thing that I can get right, then it will not be too bad. But I’m very pleased with the way it turned out.

 

 

Metro Manila Film Page

METRO MANILA COMES TO DVD ON MARCH 10