TRUTH is stranger than fiction, the opening monologue in the movie Citizen Jake sets that tone.
Those who have seen this movie are still trying to find that truth. Those who have not will be intrigued, most especially the reality bleeds out of the film where the movie’s legendary director Mike de Leon is throwing a tirade against its lead actor, journalist Atom Araullo.
There is drama in both real and reel, which brings us back to the core of this film. Here is Mike de Leon, one of the last living legends in Philippine Cinema, waking up 18 years from his last movie, and still bringing us another movie that provokes us.
To the unfamiliar, his films are about characters searching for meaning to the times. There is Sister Stella L who questions the role of the religious as the Marcos' dictatorship tramples on the workers. Batch '81 finds frat boys engage in a culture of violence that serves as metaphor to Martial Law. Bayaning Third World came out during the Philippine Centennial and questions our tendency of hero-worship to Jose Rizal without grasping a lot about history.
Those themes find its way back into Citizen Jake, as de Leon brings us another character that is relevant to this generation of millennials. He makes this film similar to to Sister Stella L and Bayaning Third World, as the lead character speaks directly to the viewer, inviting us to break the boundaries of film to see how this fiction reflects our reality.
The dilemma of Jake Herrera is about truth. As a journalist born to privilege, he despises his politician father who reveres Marcos and the fascination of strongman rule. He gets back by exposing the politicians in his blog.
Jake typifies the ideal millennial, engaged in social media, questions fake news, and tries to hold out a torch of integrity and sense of history. (He reads books such as The Conjugal Dictatorship and knows the history of his ideal retreat Baguio City).
But how far can this idealism take him? When his girlfriend's student gets raped and killed, he investigates and discovers a web of secrets: a prostitution ring ran by a socialite, and blackmail involving judges and politicians.
The ending unravels Jake as he discovers his own family’s mess and betrayals in these events. The movie has an open ending, as Jake looks at the audience and tells us we have seen the truth. It’s dark and disturbing.
Citizen Jake is a confrontational movie that asks us two things: Are our advocacies rooted in the problems of the poor concerned with survival and liberation? Are our views shaped by our own judgment or by the flood of fake news, revisions and propaganda?
Truth and fictions maybe our battles of today in media, but there are bitter struggles in the everyday lives of people. This is a film that questions and succeeds in mirroring our states and our truths.
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