SERBIS

Single-camera shoot makes for some compelling minimalism

By DAVID WILDMAN

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Serbis begins with a naked, very young girl applying lipstick and calling out to a cracked mirror: "I love you." At first it seems sleazy, but by the time the film is over, you realize this is one of the most innocent moments.

You've got to have something gripping going on to make a film with just one camera; it's like writing a song with a single chord. But like Romanian director Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) Filipino director Brillante Mendoza makes it look perfectly logical. He simply follows the actors documentary-style, in constant loops, as they walk through the winding halls, claustrophobic projection room, flooded bathrooms and expansive, but broken down, screening area of a huge family-owned theater in the Philippines. The building itself becomes as familiar and vital as any one character in the film.

Serbis means "service," and it's the codeword for "would you like your knob polished?" used by hordes of gay hustlers who've adopted the theater as a cover for their daily sex trade. These people are like symbiotes to the host family—they pay their way and are accepted as part of the cost of doing business. But, though steady and reliable, they are also the only customers the theater has, and in a sense the theater is "servicing" them. The plot of Serbis focuses on how that dependency on moral dissolution for survival inevitably seeps into the lives of this family who, although they own the establishment, is basically the working poor. It's like Slumdog Middle Class.

While pants are hiked down and loads swallowed to pay the rent, a domestic scene with a vivid cast of characters unfolds. Central to all is the matriarch of the family, Nanay Flor (Gina Pareño), who is preparing to go to court that day for a bigamy trial against her ex-husband. The family is in decline, having once owned three theaters but is now down to one. Her daughter, Nayda (Jacklyn Jose), is tasked with overseeing operations in her mother's absence while raising her own child, whose idea of playtime is running his tricycle past the hustlers groping each other in plain sight. Meanwhile, the projectionist/painter/janitor, Alan (Coco Martin), has knocked up Merly (Mercedes Cabral), a young girl that hangs around the theater. He's also got a huge boil on his butt that we see in excruciating close-up, just to add to the grittiness. The plot proceeds in a series of vignettes, like where Alan and Merly screw in the projection room during a sex film, or a goat gets loose in the theater and leads to a crazy chase scene.

Ultimately the story is left unresolved. There are hints of possible perversity showing up in the child, and we find out that Alan, a street kid being helped out of poverty by the family, is far from untouched by his roots. But the genius of the film is that we've been so effectively submerged in the lives of these people that the smallest gestures tell a much larger story.

SERBIS

EXCLUSIVE AREA PREMIERE

FRIDAY 2.27.09-SUNDAY 3.8.09

BRATTLE THEATRE

40 BRATTLE ST.,

CAMBRIDGE

617.876.6837

TIMES VARY/$9.50

BRATTLEFILM.ORG

SERBIS-THEMOVIE.COM