Cinemalaya 2019: 'ANi' -- A Tiny Step to Local Science Fiction Success

Photo Credit: Cinemalaya

Directors: Sandro del Rosario, Kim Zuñiga
Starring: Zyren dela Cruz, Miguel Valdes, Ricky Davao

No denying that ANi is one of the most anticipated films in this year's Cinemalaya. The marketing for this is tremendous, the trailer looks impressive, and there is huge hype across social media. It just looks good, but our local films especially indie are yet to be tested in terms of heavy CGI and visual effects. Going into this, I thought this would either be amazing as it looks, or it could go terribly wrong.

I watched the Gala screening of this at CCP, and the directors' messages before they screened the film imply promise, which turned up at least my expectations to the maximum. A love letter to parents, they said. The combo of sci-fi and family gave me Steven Spielberg vibes.

ANi didn't live up to the hype.

But it is a tiny step to CGI in local cinema. A welcome contribution despite its storytelling failure. ANi's CGI robot is passably believable, but the rest of the world-building is far from convincing. No one knows what the year 2050 looks like but their future in mind might not be the result that they are looking for. Who knows?

Acceptable CGI is one thing, it's quite another to make good use of it for the whole movie to work. The CGI robot they're proud of, as they should, entered the picture late in the film and everything before it looks shabby. The set looks like a product from the remains of the set of Sineskwela trying to be Ready Player One, which keeps the actors from moving freely and the camera work to be creative. There's clearly a lack of budget and the quality of the film is sacrificed because of it.

Moving the second half of the film to a place called 'The Province' felt like an excuse to drift away from any futuristic setting (although they were able to add CGI farmer robots and they look impressive). But for its every impressive aspect, its basic narrative hinders it from being great. The coming-of-age plot is tired, the PAROS, a robotics company that is supposed to be the main villain(?) is in no way threatening, and the search for the magical grain was left behind to establish 'ANi' the CGI robot. I also don't understand why its English title is 'The Harvest' when they're clearly referring to 'ANi', which is a robot's name.

At the end of the day, this is still a film with good intentions. The ambitious vision is admirable, and the attempt to help the local film industry move forward is acknowledged. But this film also makes us realize that we still have a long way to go in terms of CGI, visual effects and science fiction in general. Maybe next time we'll get help from our own government.