Brillante Mendoza’s second neo-realist film in the festival this year, SLINGSHOT is a frenetic, impressionistic and cynical plunge into the hustle of a Tondo barangay. In contrast to the solemn intimacy of FOSTER CHILD, here we scramble along, via handheld shots, after an ensemble cast struggling to get through lives gripped by poverty and corruption. This movie deftly avoids the broad portrayals that would easily polarize an audience toward characters facing such heavy moral dilemmas; though the movie advances so persistently, it’s not hard to miss that there are dilemmas. Even when they behave inexcusably, the specificity of their problems has a humanizing authenticity that’s natural and relatable. The drama seems effortless and without the manipulation and self-indulgence that’s ravaged Hollywood proper.

I’m looking forward to more from this director.

Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s PLOY is the movie David Lynch might have made if he hadn’t squandered his talent on the “reference the beginning at the end” school of surrealism. This dreamy, lethargic, pleasant trip of a film is a long and graceful swerve across lines of perception, fantasy, dreams, and reality — and it is, thankfully, more entertaining than it is confusing. Though it is confusing!

In a good way.

I did take off a point when it abruptly turned into an action flick, but I added it back when I realized it was another in a broad range of unexpected tangents.

What was true for a Berlin devastated by war in Roberto Rossellini’s GERMANY YEAR ZERO is true for the precariously laid-out squalor of a village in Manila. Brillante Mendoza obviously has a knack for knowing what his audience knows and can gather from a scene. As the camera is confidently trained on what appear to be, on their own, mundane situations, the implications gradually build to an overwhelming sense of immediacy. All of it is presented in a way that feels natural, with an emotional tempo closer to real life than to the abbreviated melodrama most films on this subject would tend toward. Rather, we have a staccato beat punctuated with cab rides and corny ring tones.  It assumes that you’re smart enough to get it, rather than beating you over the head with orchestral swells and sweeping panoramas.

My first instinct is to say I wish there were more films like this in the mainstream; studios not afraid of genres like neo-realism. But this style has to keep its integrity and subtlety to retain its value. So, instead I ask you, dear reader, check this film out, and think about it for a bit. Think about what film can be.