VIBE CHECK AFTER A DECADE of living through and reconciling the havoc that Duterte's "war on drugs" left in its wake: a pile of corpses towering 30,000 dead bodies tall, a wildly divided country to, seemingly, a point of no return, and a population so fazed by the circus that is the higher seats of the nation. That Duterte was seized by the International Criminal Court is somewhat of a silver lining. As is just, a murderer should answer for his crimes. Yet—all the way from the Netherlands, it seems like—Duterte's vicious doctrines continue to proliferate the same tragic message: "Pumapatay sya," admits one voter in a street interview. "[Pero] Nasa tama naman." ("He kills people, yes. But he's in the right to do so.")
That one comment spun this writer down a frustrating rabbit hole of videos with Filipinos' adoration for the ex-president's rotten rhetoric. Watching The Gospel of the Beast—Sheron Dayoc’s thriller about a troupe of troubled teens that carry out violent crimes for a well-funded syndicate—exacerbates that frustration and adds weight to what we've been cautioned all our lives: That words have power, especially over people that have been systemically oppressed, deprived, and gaslit. I've kinda given up discerning whether it's some kind of Stockholm syndrome. To have people convinced that the answer to a world of crime is crime itself—that is the Beast's gospel.
Dayoc's film follows Mateo, a fifteen-year-old student played by Jansen Magpusao, who inadvertently gets roped into a life of crime after a fatal spat with a classmate. Outside of Mateo's inner tumults, the inciting incident plays out with unnerving non-challance, like it's just another Tuesday for the rest of the city. The film kind of underlines certain moments, like how a murder syndicate is able to charter a corpse without much effort of hiding it from the authorities. The whole thing reminds me of Chito S. Roño's Badil, where corruption isn't hidden at all; it is literally and figuratively commoditized.
Magpusao is clearly the film's anchor. This film definitively dispels any doubt that his performance in John Denver Trending—a film that, inevitably, this film will draw comparisons to, what with director Arden Rod Condez's involvement as a producer—is anything but real acting talent. He stands toe-to-toe with Ronnie Lazaro, who plays Berto, Mateo's sort-of father-figure. Both are products of a failed system: throughout the film, we see Mateo reconcile with the innocence he has lost to a world of violence he—categorically—disagrees with. And Berto, who has long lost himself in the immoralities of his criminal acts, feels compelled to share with Mateo what feelings of indignation he harbors instead of correcting the mistake that put both of them here in the first place.
This unravels in an abandoned estate, where Mateo's cohorts, though also morally unsound, ensure they have space for extracurriculars, like the seemingly nightly karaoke. Dayoc and his co-writer, Jericho Aguado, aren't trying to humanize them, at least not to the point that you'd feel conflicted when empathy rules over you when you hear them discuss where they stand on issues, both earthly and spiritual. The effect varies throughout, but it reaches an Orwellian fever pitch when we see them enact the same violence among themselves and when Mateo finally gives in to the same beastly call. Dayoc's own gospel is to think—deeply—if it's worth taking heed of that call.
Dayoc's The Gospel of the Beast was one of those films I failed to see in the circuit, but thanks to FDCP's efforts to bring original Filipino filmmaking to consumers with JuanFlix, I am able to see them from home. Gratefully, the service is only PHP 599 per year, the price of admission to the more premier local theaters. And oh, this is not sponsored in any way. I just wanted to close out with a shout-out to this project, because I genuinely think it can bridge the gap between Filipino films and the modern Filipino film audience.
The Gospel of the Beast
dir. Sheron Dayoc | 2023 | Drama, Thriller | 4
A teenage boy who, while searching for his father and accidentally killing his best friend, gets his life turned upside down and learns the destructive realities about life, death, and beasthood.
TIFF trailer for Sheron Dayoc's film, The Gospel of the Beast. ©Tokyo International Film Festival