on the president’s orders (d james jones, olivier sarbil)

Emerging from the film, contrasting thoughts come to the fore. Firstly that this is filmmaking which does indeed get eye-catching access to a world which is little known, that of the Philippine slum of Caloocan, in Manila. Olivier Sarbil’s camera is right there on the ground floor, capturing the feverish intimacy of an overcrowded patch of land. This is a fundamentally visual film, steeped in the colours and textures of the slum. A group of slum kids are filmed washing in the street. They look like something out of a Dolce and Gabanna video. The film’s visual flair is its strength and its achilles heel. Because at the end of the day, this doesn’t feel like a film which is all that interested in establishing context or any kind of account of the realties of the role of drugs within this society. Anyone who resides in an environment where you see good people ruined by cheap drugs, will know the fearful damage they can cause, stripping out the life and possibilities of the people who live there. Dutarte’s ruthless campaign to eradicate drugs feels instinctively immoral, but on the other hand it’s still a reaction to a pressing social issue. The film’s only real interviews are with the police chief, who is either promulgating or turning a blind eye to the execution of suspected dealers. His tough guy image ends up looking like a macho pose and the audience waits for his inevitable fall from grace, supplied by the end notes. However, it would have been interesting to have been offered some kind of wider perspective from within the Philippine community. Who controls the drugs trade? What other strategies have been tried to mitigate or eradicate it? The film’s reluctance to engage with the deeper context of its material brings us to the question of who is making this film and to what end? It’s notable in the credits that there’s doesn’t appear to be a single Philippine name involved (this might be wrong, but if so they are clearly a significant minority). It feels as though this is a movie which has been made with a view to being exhibited on Western screens, allowing people to dip into a dangerous world without needing to engage with it or even think about the content to any real degree. As the credits rolled, a woman in the cinema said out loud: What a beautiful, terrible film. One can’t help thinking that the filmmakers would have been delighted with this. It feels as though the film will find a happy niche on a suitable streaming service. Everyone’s a winner, but no-one is much the wiser about the complexity of Coloocan’s social issues and how they should be addressed. This is outside-in filmmaking, rather than inside-out. 

nb - I read that: “the International Criminal Court has opened a preliminary investigation into Duterte and these extrajudicial killings. And, it’s asked to review footage from the film.” (https://www.justsecurity.org/66514/on-a-presidents-orders-new-frontline-docs-look-at-duterte-and-mbs/) So perhaps, to put the counter view, the above reading of the film is overly harsh.