Last night, I saw Jay, the movie that won as Best Picture for Cinemalaya 2008 and is in running for Urian Best Film for 2009. (One film that I'm yearning to see is Yanggaw, also an Urian contender).

Jay, the film, is about two Jay's: Jay Santiago, a gay TV producer documenting the family of a gay hate crime victim whose name is Jay Mercado. In documenting the news, Jay Santiago unemotionally intrudes into the private grief of Jay Mercado’s family. Baron Geisler starred as Jay Santiago.


Jay is both funny and painful and too near the truth. I can't help but laugh at how Baron's character deadpan-ly sweet-talks the grieving mother on how to re-enact her wailing after seeing her son's body, or how the other characters in the film acted (literally at times) their grief in front of a camera. (Notice the film's poster and you'll see a tv screen inside the niche).

Jay is an insider's view at how manipulative media can be, at how the media can unemotionally zero-in on the pain of other people, at how the media can easily twist some facts to their advantage. The sadder part is that we, the viewing public, easily believe what is printed on the newspaper or what is broadcasted on tv as news. The saddest part is that there's no way we can know whether what we see and read is true or not.

Nothing is more apt to describe the entire film other than a quote from Jay Director Francis Xavier Pasion who said: “Do not believe everything you see as truth.”

I hated Baron's manipulative character and he, for me, totally deserved the Best Actor award from Cinemalaya 2008 (and I won't be surprised if he wins Urian this September).

During the last scene, I was secretly hoping Baron's character would end up like Jay Mercado: dead. Well, he didn't. I honestly felt that the film's ending was like an unconsumed climax. Nabitin ako and it left me more opinionated about how I negatively view our media as being twisted and self-serving.

Watch Jay with your friends. Your post-movie conversations will surely be entertaining.

Jay's honors:

• The film won the Audience Award in Black Movie Film Festival 2009 held in Geneva, Switzerland.
• The film was nominated for the Sutherland Trophy in The Times BFI London Film Festival in 2008.
• In the 11th Festival de Cine Asiatico de Barcelona (Barcelona Asian Film Festival 2009), the film won the D-Cinema Award "for developing an original and sharp critic to the media which entertains and makes you think, going beyond its political and format boundaries." The D-Cinema award is given to the most innovative and experimental Asian film shot in digital format.