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BY PETER SOLIS NERY
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All the kisses that you missed
THERE is a lot of kissing in my latest movie Ikapito nga Adlaw (7th Day) – a film by Peter Solis Nery. And they are pretty torrid. But there was a lot more you didn’t see. Imagine the kissing from Sept. 16 to Sept. 20.
No, wait. That’s not how it happened. There was kissing on Sept. 16 at the PRIMA City rooftop all right, but it was only, I don’t know, five or six minutes? That was for my actors’ workshop. I only wanted to know if ex-boyfriends can kiss for my movie without being awkward.
On Sept. 20 though, at a banana garden, we got at least 25 minutes of kissing footages. And we are just talking about the kissing scenes of Zyra Doronila and Christian Divinagracia, lead stars of our movie. Now, how does it happen that we shot 25 minutes of kissing for a 15-minute film?
Amateurs! That’s my one word answer.
Zyra and Christian are first time actors. No, they were not even willing volunteers. They were volunteered to me by someone else. And so I did a lot of coaxing and coaching, and I actually delivered a director’s spiel about how the camera picks up even the littlest bit of insincerity in every move and gesture the actor does.
At the banana garden location, I even had to say that the whole movie rests on the crucial kissing sin, I mean scene, which, in a way, is not really untruthful because don’t we all go to the movies to watch all the kisses that we missed? And thankfully, my actors delivered my vision, and the mission our creative team set out to do. I mean, I dare you to see Ikapito nga Adlaw and not feel erotic about all the kissing you’ll see.
Now, the scandalous 25 minutes of kissing footages is another matter. In shooting a kissing scene, I don’t really want to choreograph as a director. I only tell my actors to kiss naturally, but a little more passionately. So they kiss; and I scream cut, because there is not enough passion, or it looks fake to me.
They kiss again; and then, I see passion, true love, true eros, true kiss; but they are so at it that the camera can’t get the beautiful shots, so I scream “Cut!” again. They kiss again, and this time the cinematographer says, “Please cut, Direk. Sorry, we ran out of battery.” And of course, so that the actors couldn’t blame me, I blame them first. I tell them if they kissed right the first time, we didn’t have to do this again, and again, and drain our camera’s battery.
Battery fixed, they kiss again. And I tell them, just kiss until I say cut. For how long, they ask. I say, you didn’t hear me. I said, until I say cut. If I cut the next day, it means you kiss until the next day. The idea is for you to kiss not thinking we are shooting, so that I will get some real kissing that convinces the audience. I will get more kissing footages than I need, and we will edit for the most believable and sincere shots. Either you kiss one long time until it gets real, or we do this again and again until I get the kiss that I want. And if you trust me, it’s best to just do it my way.
And so, they kiss again until my jaws drop, until I couldn’t speak anymore, until I wanted to say cut, but words wouldn’t come out of my throat. And that’s how I knew I got the kiss that I wanted. I look at my cinematographer, he nods, and I signal him to cut, but he misunderstands, so we keep on rolling until I could speak again, and say cut, exhausted and with a parched throat.
Well, it may or may not have happened that way, but that’s how I remember it. What are you going to do?
A few years back, Zyra Doronila dropped out of some tourism course at CPU to live like a rich kid, and help manage their family businesses (take note, businesses, not business!). These days, she hangs out with the legendary Peter Solis Nery because, well, because she’s among the young and beautiful in Dumangas. I mean, that’s what rich kids do. (Shout out to SNB and NGNN!) In her early 20s now, Zyra can outdrink any of the boys in the young and restless pack. Yes, she’s officially one of the boys…at least for now.
The camera loves Zyra. Or maybe, my cinematographers just took care of her shots. They love her as a camera subject! I don’t know. But I really think she’s a lot prettier and sexier in the Ikapito nga Adlaw movie than in real life, even if she is really pretty and sexy in real life. How pretty and sexy? Well, pretty and sexy enough to wear pekpek shorts for our town plaza late afternoon meetings, and get away with it.
And pretty and sexy enough for me to wish she gets back with pretty boy Christian Divinagracia, a distant relative. Gorgeous Christian is a third of the Dumangas triplets, a.k.a. Divinagracia triplets, a.k.a. ABC triplets. Yes, ABC for Arvin, Benedict, and Christian. And the handsomest of them all is… Well, it’s a hard call. But only Christian can be coaxed to act in my movie, so I’ll say it is Christian.
No, wait. That’s not how it happened. I really just wanted a movie with a great kissing scene. And I figured, if I am going to use people from my hometown of Dumangas to kiss for posterity, I might waste a lot of money and time (and we were on a deadline) if I cast total strangers. So I zeroed in on ex-lovers Christian and Zyra. If they were exes, they should be familiar and comfortable with each other. Now, will they kiss?
It may have started with drunken talks and dares (yes, I have a history of drinking cases and cases of beers with these young and beautiful 20-somethings), but once I get young folks to trust me, they understand that I take care of them, and I never breach that trust. I may have screamed at them, and humiliated them, to make them cry for the movie, but they understand that it’s all for the best.
Or not. For one, I knew, and saw in the rushes, how I made Christian shake on the first day of shoot. I’m not sure if it was for anger or fear of me. But my DOP even told me he could not take a good shot because Christian’s lips were shaking as he delivers, and stutters, and messes up, his lines. So it is a miracle that in the movie, Christian looks so dream boy gorgeous, and the matinee idol type, too. His acting also looks and feels so effortless. If I love Christian more than the other thirds of the triplets before our movie, I love him even more so now. And believe me, if he doesn’t get burned by this filmmaking experience, I’ll probably cast him again in my future projects.
At twenty-something, Christian is now back in school taking up some IT course at ISCOF-Dumangas. He was also a University San Agustin dropout. One year or one sem shy of graduation, the triplets contracted dengue and almost died. Since then, they stayed close to home rather than study in the big city. In addition to school, Christian also helps in his aunt’s family business as they await their immigration visa to the USA.
That I did not see how they were as boyfriends is regretful because Zyra and Christian are a beautiful couple. I’m really rooting for their love team. People around them tell me it’s not very likely they’ll get back together. But most are wishing and hoping they will!
Well, I don’t know. I’m Peter Solis Nery, and I’m a miracle worker. At least one marriage (and I don’t know how many copulations) resulted from making my first full-length feature film, Gugma sa Panahon sang Bakunawa. It can happen again.
I mean, you can see for yourself how the ex-lovers kiss in my movie. Passion runs thick and syrupy in this one that you can cut it with a knife. And yeah, if the kissing feels a little long (does it really go on and feel like three minutes?), well, I wanted to recreate the feeling of me getting shocked as a director at how passionately ex-lovers can kiss.
And besides, something has to be done with those 25 minutes of kissing footages. I mean, I don’t want my actors telling me I made them kiss for hours and only printed two seconds of it. Instead, I want my actors, and my audience, to feel embarrassed that they don’t kiss like that, like the lovers on the screen, every day of their life.
Because Zyra and Christian’s kiss in Ikapito nga Adlaw alone is worth the price of admission. And I’ll even go further to say that it is the kiss that God wanted for humans to do on the seventh day. Thus, the title of our movie – Ikapito nga Adlaw (7th Day)./PN
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