Once upon a time I went down in a basement second hand store and came up again with a tape of For Y'ur Height Only, and so started my life-long love for the odd superstar Weng Weng. It took a year or so, but then I found another one: The Impossible Kid… and that’s it. It wasn’t till the other day I actually saw my third Weng Weng adventure, D’Wild Wild Weng, so rare is his movies. The movies themselves are crazy little z-movie adventures, but I’ve seen crazier. The thing with them is Weng Weng himself, a character who’s mystery Australian ex-video store owner turned lecturer and filmmaker Andrew Leavold set out to solve in The Search for Weng Weng!
The documentary about Weng Weng have been in the works for many years now, so it’s fantastic to finally see it in an lovely 3-disc Australian DVD release, which includes not only the soundtrack but also a whole movie with the little fellow, the above mentioned D’Wild Wild Weng! That’s the icing on the cake! But back to the doc itself. I’m holding back to write about the content, because I think it’s important for you to see it for yourself, but it’s truly a great piece of film. At first I was slightly annoyed at the very uneven visuals, which of course comes from it being made during a long time, so some footage felt less good than others. But after a while I got used to it because it’s part of the story, that alone tells the story about Leavold’s search for who Weng Weng really was.
Thankfully Leavold focuses on the people he meets and the stories he tells, instead of focusing on himself which is a trap way too many documentary filmmakers do nowadays. Leavold is present, because it’s his search, but lets the subjects talk...and talk, and chat and gossip and it’s a fantastic listen. I’m so happy he decided to keep some of the rough footage from the filming, for example when he accidentally runs into the editor of most of Weng Weng’s movies Edgardo 'Boy' Vinarao on a parking lot or the magical sequence when he follows “the Bruce Lee of the Philippines”, Franco Guerrero , when he sits and talks with some other old actors and stuntmen in what feels like a shopping mall restaurant, a place where they just hang out.
It’s the best form of fly on the wall, stuff just happens - and in the last mentioned sequence director Eddie Nicart walks by just by chance, which makes it even more a sign of something very special than just a normal documentary. But The Search for Weng Weng is not only a quite sad story about a very special guy (I won’t say anything, it’s up to you to see!), it’s a film about the Philippines and the soul of the Pinoy. In a way Weng Weng represents the outsider of the Philippines, his rise and fall - and he’s not alone in this, just very special. We get a chance to meet some people who tells us not just about the actor but about the way of life in this country, the attitude, the culture - but it’s very subtle and you won’t realize it until you’ve seen it to the end. The most open-minded interview is with actor Rez Cortez, who really spills his guts in what he think about the (ab)use of Weng Weng as a money maker, so even film academic Tilman Baumgärtel and the view of handicapped people in the Philippines. He makes the parable with Weng Weng being a jester, and it connects so brilliantly to one of the bizarrest twists in the documentary: Imelda Marcos.
Here we get to meet the old wife of the dictator, still living what seems a life in luxury. Leavold and the team gets invited to her birthday and follows her on a smaller trip the day after, while she’s both - without knowing it - putting the the finger on the bizarre life she’s living and how Weng Weng belonged there. Her daughter, Imee, is also interview. She’s far more realistic and have a distance to the pop culture of her country, but also comes off as a person who really want to do good on camera and with what she’s saying.
It’s so much details and stuff and twists and love in The Search of Weng Weng. I think we after this have a quite good look in who he was, after meeting his last surviving family member, colleagues, movie festival people and people on the street. It’s a documentary build on the talents of a very curious person and Andrew Leavold really delivers what we want. It’s not the biggest budgeted documentary about there, and it has some minor flaws - but who the hell cares about that when the whole thing is SO good? I loved every second of it and I’m pretty sure everyone will like it, even if they have no idea what Pinoy filmmaking means or meeting Weng Weng for the first time.
The ending though, it’s my favorite. Filmmaker and historian Nick Deocampo goes on analyzing the phenomena and gets some kind of personal revelation, finds a new reading of Weng Weng’s purpose in Filipino society. He gets so excited, so happy, he can finally connect with Weng Weng, put the final pieces of the puzzle together and it’s that enthusiasm The Search for Weng Weng ends with.
We as viewers feels it too, it’s almost a supernatural experience going through the rise and fall of Weng Weng and finally see him for what he really was, not just like a very, very short guy on the silver screen.
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