Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros/The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros

Curiosity about the presentation of preteen sexuality and the desire to actually listen to Tagalog in a context other than a friend talking to his mother on the phone made me watch this, and in the end, it almost, almost won me over. Ultimately, I am in two minds about the film, and indeed ended up thinking of it as two different stories.

The first was a character study of preening, feminine Maxi, whereas the latter is a melodramatic, overwrought crime drama. From a cursory glance over the reviews on Rottentomatoes.com, it seems critics have applauded the former while decrying the cliché of the latter, whereas for me, I found myself experiencing the reverse.

I didn’t like the first forty minutes. I liked just one scene, a neatly-observed slice-of-life comedy scene about the pronunciation of an English film title. Otherwise…I did not like Maxi and found his life very contrived. I can only assume Maxi is a culturally accurate depiction of a gay boy at the beginning of adolescence in the Philippines. From what I have read, the prevailing mould for gay people there is transsexuality, the idea of being a woman trapped in a man’s body, and being extremely feminine is the only acceptable way to behave as a gay man on the islands. As such, I found Maxi somewhat repulsive, swaggering around in an ugly caricature of a queen, taking part in outrageous drag competitions, wearing glittery hairbands and generally being a limp-wristed stereotype. His family of small-time criminals’ complete acceptance of him worked, but generally their situation seemed much too tenuous. There was no way to believe their lives would just drift along to this point, and then suddenly explode into bizarre directions just because of a new cop in town.

There is a turning point roughly halfway through where the cop, Victor, a man who looks unnervingly like the lovechild of two of my friends, tells Maxi he likes girls who are ‘simple’. This prompts Maxi to stop acting so outrageously, and he starts to dress more boyishly and behave naturally, at last letting down the walls of contrivance that prevent the connection with him as a character. This happens to coincide with a shift towards the film’s actual plot, and the second ‘story’ begins. This is a crime melodrama about a wanted man and his family’s attempts to protect him from the law. It’s overblown, histrionic and very silly, but that makes it good entertainment. Maxi is pulled between his unrequited love (Victor’s sexuality or attraction to Maxi never being wholly clear, early affection being quite possibly done without any thought of the boy’s possible feelings) and his loyalty to his family. It’s all extremely over-the-top, but that only makes it satisfying viewing.

The film looks cheap, shot without expensive cameras and cinematography, but that in some strange way helps with the atmosphere of authenticity and poverty, helps make believable the happy-go-lucky but squalid slum lifestyle. The soundtrack is great, full of sprightly, tongue-in-cheek songs. The performances generally have the sensitivity of the better end of arthouse cinema, although with a plot so melodramatic, of course there are parts where it all goes too far. Generally, not taking the film too seriously will make for an enjoyable, charming time.