Cinemalaya 2019: 'John Denver Trending' -- A Society Built By Injustice

Photo Credit: Cinemalaya

Director: Arden Rod Condez
Starring: Jansen Magpusao, Meryll Soriano

First-time writer-director Arden Rod Condez's John Denver Trending is a straightforward-structured, infuriating look of a society adapting to the world of social media filled with vicious fake news and validation. It begins right away with the drama surrounding the titular character John Denver who was shot brutally attacking a classmate accusing him of stealing his iPad. The video went viral which causes his life to go into a downward spiral of unfortunate events stemming from the often unjust treatment of his community.

Without discrediting other equally valuable Cinemalaya entries, this might be the most timely and important film of its batch. The film urges the audience to reflect on how easily people believe the lies created by society by capitalizing on John Denver's situation and the domino effect to his psyche. Although the film immediately established that John Denver is innocent, the film never intended to explore who stole which. Instead, it focused on the growing turmoil after the video trended across the internet.

For something that could be fixed by merely shaking hands, it spread like a wildfire revealing prejudice among neighbors, greed from the accusers, the power struggle between school and the police, selfish and foolish intentions in the form of likes, views & validations, and even naivete created by beliefs. All of these was unbiasedly laid out by Cordez, and while it went a bit repetitive along the way, it did not fail in building fury in his viewers, and stigma with his main character.

Meryll Soriano plays the mother of John Denver, who significantly kept her son's sanity intact with all the chaos surrounding him. In a way, she also served as the audience's voice of reason every time people blindly prosecute John Denver of a crime he's clearly never done. In his mother's eyes, and in our eyes, John Denver is innocent.

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter in a society built by injustice, and the film's resolution reinforced the ultimate negative effect when a community chooses to triumph affliction. Sad to say, that's how it is nowadays.