For a proposed monthly column on for Rogue Magazine on Filipino Film Culture, inall its forms (short filmmaking, feature filmmaking, independent, commercial,criticism, teaching, screening venues, pirated DVD culture, archiving, history, etc)

The Great Smoke: The Humanist Cinema of Rox Lee

As Joel David notes in his introduction to an essay by Anne De Guzman, RoqueFederizon Lee’s cinematic personality is as singular as the name he is affectionately isknow by:

Roxlee

. Roxlee’s entry into the Filipino consciousness came via the bizarre,humorous and occasionally touching comic strip

Cesar Asar

. While he has turned hiscamera on and directed or collaborated on several live-action short films (as well as oneindependent feature), it is the belief of this writer that it is for his work in hand-drawnanimation (often utilizing inserts of photographs) that he will be best remembered.“The Great Smoke”, a classic among Filipino shorts, is a shining examples of thewildness of his imagination (stunningly creative visions), perversity of his genius (self-explanatory), and the singular talent of his craft (casually turning accidents in his favour by virtue of his artistic inspiration: such as the flashing of a film camera caused by a low battery, used for dramatic effect—implying the horror of flashing lights caused by thenuclear bomb).In “The Great Smoke” Rox begins

in medias res

, with sounds and sketches startingabruptly after a title card. He starts by showing us images of perversion, first of the physical variety and then of the mental, as sketches of deformed bodies warpingthemselves further occupy our retina. The sketches are playful but harrowing [insertexample], and one laughs as much as he winces, believing full well in his mind that Roxhas taken artistic liberty, exaggerating his depictions in order to produce a stronger effecton his audience.As the sketches continue we remain entranced by his depiction of an otherworldlyinferno. Rox turns the tables on our expectations of cartoons; the violence of his images,like a hammer repeat and pound our retina, while a harrowing, cackle on the soundtrack mocks our eardrums. As the sound gets more intense and kicks stronger, the first“recorded” human imaged appears on screen, via photographs. We are shown humans,faces, feet, legs: images of bodies that are mutilated beyond our wildest imaginations.Beyond even Rox’s. The images repeat, and the nail is plunged into our eyes: Rox’svisions weren’t exaggerations; they were conservative. The film then cuts faster back andforth between Rox’s hands sketching and the real life images of

Hiroshima

victims. Theintensity rises once again as a Pink Floyd guitar kicks, signaling its shift.The images that we see, while also serving their function as examples of the horror mancan and has done to man (and man’s protest of man’s inhumanity against man: there arealso images of human rights activists, and war protesters, some take on local terrain), can,also, be seen as images emanating Rox’s subconscious. There is a point I have withheldfrom mentioning that is important to tell you now: we have not just been shown movingsketches, but have been shown the artists hand

as he sketches

, creating a detachedawareness in the viewer that what they are watching is not the manipulated finished