Talking about eroticism in Filipino film with Perfumed Garden (Cine Suerte, Inc.) as point of reference is problematic. The problem is not that Celso Ad Castillo's film is a complex work of erotic art the way Isla or Scorpio Nights were. Rather, the difficulty lies in a compond of factors than need untangling so that rational discussion could be possible. Castillo has chosen to cast Perfumed Garden in the genre of the hard-core film. This ought to be obvious to anyone who has watched enough porn movies, which often begin with a chance encounter that leads to a series of explorations and experimentations culminating in an orgasmic climactic scene that sums up all the techniques, positions and combinations of couples earlier depicted. The love angle between Carrie (Barbra Anne Kaufman) and Raffy (Michael de Mesa) at the heart of the script is stock material made familiar by countless melodramas in local films, television dramas and radio soap operas. The characters in Perfumed Garden are caricatures in the tradition of the porn movie and of the media drama. Castillo has packaged this blend of steamy, graphic lovemaking and predictable melodramatics with a good deal of commercial gloss. Occassionally, effective mise-en-scene, artful cinematography, texture conscious sound direction, atmospheric production design and good looking performers, all these deck Perfumed Garden with respectability even as it origins in the porn film show. As a matter of fact, the film is much too busy flaunting its disreputable origins to reflect on its subject matter and therefore lacks any insight into the nature and implications of sexuality that could have propelled the movie beyond merely sensational.
Given the genre its director had chosen to explore, Perfumed Garden might be said to have pushed back the frontiers of what is permissible in film. Technically polished as the film is, however, it is wanting in certain elements essential to an art film on sex Like Castillo's other art films on sex, Perfumed Garden essays, with a boldness that has become Castillo's style, such profound messages which the filmmaker himself negates with the prodigality and the lack of discipline that have become hallmarks of even his best ouvres. Because the majority of its scenes and screen time are devoted to the meaningless exposure of Kaufman's body and the exhibition of a variety of sexual techniques, neither of which underscore whatever insights the director may have wanted to share, there is reason to complain that Castillo has succeeded only in bringing another form of confinement for Filipino movies. The complaint would be premised on the limitations of Perfumed Garden as a feature film, principal of which is the lack of anything vital or fresh to say about sexuality. It remains perhaps for another, hopefully, a more substantial erotic film to demonstrate that sexuality is indeed as valid a subject matter for film as any other aspect of human life.
Directed By: Celso Ad Castillo
Original Screen Material Created By: Celso Ad Castillo
Screenplay: Tony A. Calvento
Cinematography: Gani F. Sioson
Music: Venancio Saturno
Film Editor: Augusto Salvador
Production Design: Rod Feleo
Produced By: Cine Suerte, Inc.
Release Date: February 6, 1986
8:23 AM
Hi Jojo,
Great review as always. This movie as far as I can remember is available at TFCNow! I remember checking it out but found it too boring so I didn't really finish or paid much attention to it.
Regards,
RSE
9:44 AM
Hello Ron,
That was the film's intention. It was shot partly in real time especially the scenes where the two characters went around Manila. Perfumed Garden finally picked up when they went to Vigan.
8:07 AM
Michael de Mesa on a leather jacket going around manila? init siguro nun. would be interesting to watch what Manila looked like in 1985.i think i saw this movie in a 2nd run theater in the 90s,much like that one in SERBIS. Jo,Do you have Lino Brocka's Hot Property? i hope its next.
2:12 PM
RSE was right, it was boring. BTW where is Barbra Anne Kaufman, now?
2:19 PM
If you remember Dexter, back then most actors wore leather jackets to project a bad boy image and that was what Michael de Mesa's character personified. I saw this film on its first day at the Quezon Theater in Cubao. I remember being enhtralled by the movie. The slow pace was intentional, it made the movie more hypnotic in a way...
2:19 PM
I have no idea where she is now... it would be interesting to find out if she pursued an acting career here in the US.
2:23 PM
Jojo, how many films did Barbra made? It will be a nice treat if those erotic films by The Kid will be released on dvd box-set.
2:25 PM
As far as I know, she only did one movie in the Philippines. It would be great to have a remastered DVD boxed set of his sex films starting with Nympha... it would be an enormous set.
2:36 PM
Jojo you almost forgot she was in the cast of.....And the World Became Flesh. Celso I believe was also in the cast of this forgettable flick that flourished during the ECP craze.
2:45 PM
I don't have any recollection of that movie at all... Maybe it was forgettable that's why I can't remember it. Was it shown at the MFC?
2:48 PM
Most probably it was shown at the MFC. Same year that Perfumed Garden came out in the theatres. It was an epic proportion type of film complete with costumes like in The Ten Commandments. But the film itself, forget it! And The Kid was also in the cast.
2:52 PM
I don't recall a movie with that title shown at the MFC. Maybe its where Celso met Barbra and decided to cast her in Perfumed Garden. Probably not Ten Commandments maybe more along the likes of Caligula...
6:41 PM
I was lucky to buy a original vhs copy of this film as well as a copy of the uncut version of Boatman in an old video rental store. I read a recent interview with Dick Israel and apparently he once dated Barbara Kauffman.
10:20 AM
From the screen caps it looks like the film was shot in Amsterdam or some country in Europe. Must be DeMesa's leather jacket and Kaufmann caucasian looks that make it that way.
Jojo- Im surprised you dont know "World Became Flesh." We finally know one movie that you dont know :) I think it has Orestes O. and Barbra K as Adam and Eve. I dont know who directed it. I was indeed a forgetable film.
2:22 PM
You're indeed one of the lucky ones to have a VHS copy of Perfumed Garden Angelo. Where did you read Dick Israel's interview. I cannot believe that he dated Barbra Anne Kaufman, that's interesting...
2:28 PM
Hi Jason!
The film's first half was shot around Manila and the second half in Vigan. Don't be surprised, there's a lot of Filipino films I haven't seen or heard of. The title sounds familiar but I never got the chance to see it at all.
11:50 PM
I read that interview too it was on this month's issue of Maxim Philippines. I think he also mentioned that he once dated Tetchie Agbayani and during the filming of the rape scene in Pepeng Shotgun he was trying to conceal her private parts.
1:30 AM
So the interview was published on this month's issue of FHM, I should ask my frined to get me a copy. I've heard about the short fling between Dick Israel and Tetchie Agbayani during the filming of Pepeng Shotgun... napakasuwerte naman niya.
7:17 PM
7:27 PM
In an interview with the now-defunct Kislap Magazine in 1984, Barbra Ann Kaufman said that she's not an American, but British (who spent many years in the Philippines). Her voice was just dubbed.