VENICE 2021: On the Job: The Missing 8
VENICE Erik Matti has created for himself quite the interesting niche as a filmmaker. Working almost exclusively in the Philippines, he has become one of the country’s more acclaimed genre auteurs, working in science fiction, horror, crime, and action. His most popular film was 2013’s On the Job, a tale of political corruption with strong action scenes sprinkled in.
On the Job: The Missing 8 is a sequel/spin-off that takes place in the same violent universe that Matti has created. While the first film was primarily centred on two detained criminals who are regularly hired by the government to carry out hits, the perspective here is quite different. John Arcilla plays Sisoy, a corrupt journalist and radio jockey who does not mind being a pawn of the mayor of La Paz, supporting him every step of the way. That is, until seven of his colleagues – and the son of the newspaper – go missing, allegedly murdered by the mayor for snooping around in his affairs.
The Philippines are not known for their relaxed political climate: they exited the long, violent dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos and found themselves broken and split apart, with rich and clever politicians taking advantage of the situation to ensure they could get much more power after the fallout. This saw many police officers being bribed to arrest dissidents or to help in destroying the evidence of political assassinations.
With The Missing 8, Matti creates a scathing indictment of the way politicians manipulate the media to gain more support, while still keeping the general populace in a constant state of fear. It is an angry movie that utilises various cinematic elements to make it as engaging as it possibly can be. At almost 3 and a half hours long, the epic narrative moves surprisingly swiftly, as it goes from a shootout intercut with a karaoke to split-screen conversations that show three different angles at a time, plus montages with newspaper headlines floating in the air and brilliant use of songs to emphasise the scope and heightened reality of the film.
On the Job: The Missing 8 is one of the finest films to premiere at the Venice Film Festival. It is that perfect blend of genre filmmaking with socio-political statements that reminds audiences that films can both be very darn fun to watch and also deeply relevant to put a country’s problems at the forefront.