Filmmaker Khavn de la Cruz gives us the lowdown on his new bad-ass movie, ‘Ruined Heart’


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You can always expect big, shocking things from writer/filmmaker Khavn de la Cruz.

In his 46th and latest movie, Ruined Heart, he tells the traditional fairytale between a criminal and a whore.

Ruined Heart is topbilled by Japanese actors Tadanobu Asano and Nathalia Acevedo but the name that tugs at our interest is Christopher Doyle, who took care of the cinematography duties for Ruined Heart. You may know him from Chungking Express, In The Mood for Love, and Hero.

Ruined Heart premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival and has already been screened in Belgium, Mexico, Taipei, USA. So we’re sorry to inform you of the bad news: Ruined Heart won’t have a regular run in Metro Manila cinemas.

But the good news is, it will have a special one-time screening on Aug 28 at the UP CineAdarna.

Khavn engaged and indulged Coconuts Manila in an email interview to tell us more about the movie.

What is Ruined Heart about?
The secondary title says it all: “Another Love story Between A Criminal and A Whore”. It’s a love story between two misfits. I call it a punk-noir opera.

Uh, what does punk-noir opera even mean? Why do you call it that?
Why not? The movie is those three things, and more. It only has three chords. It utilizes all the noir tropes and fucks around with it. What you hear, see, and feel [in Ruined Heart] are much more important than what your 20th century Hollywood-bred narrative brain will tell you.

Anyway, it’s just shorthand; a label that’s a non-label. What’s more relevant is the things in between. It points you to this forest of a film in order to get lost.

Our jaw dropped when we saw Christopher Doyle’s name in the credits. How did this happen? 
My German co-producer Stephan Holl of Rapid Eye Movies thought it was a good idea to hook up two of his craziest friends and make a film. This was in 2012, when I’d just premiered the short film version of Ruined Heart in Berlinale. We thought why not develop it into a longer piece?

Chris, Stephan, and I hung out in this jazz dive bar called “Joyce Is Not Here” in Hong Kong for some nights [after that]. I showed Chris the film I was working on during that time — Edsa XXX — in fast-forward (lots of dancing Makapili aka men with bayong in their heads) and he liked the idea of working together and shooting again in the Philippines. [It’s been] more than two decades since he shot Days Of Being Wild, his first collaboration with Wong Kar Wai.

A year after that, we shot Ruined Heart.

And the Japanese actors, were they the actors that you had your eyes set on or were they referred by a friend of a friend of a friend?

The Japanese superstar Tadanobu Asano (who plays The Criminal) has been hearing a lot about the crazy, fun, wild and unhinged chaotic free spirit of the Filipinos from his friends. After seeing my film Mondomanila, he said, “Let’s do it!”. The timing was quite impeccable — this was before his acting commitment to Martin Scorsese’s upcoming film Silence.

I met Nathalia Acevedo (who plays The Whore) on my last night in this film festival in Wroclaw, Poland. She’s the lead actress of Post Tenebras Lux, which won in Cannes (which I thought was Carlos Reygadas’ best work). She saw Mondomanila in Wroclaw, loved it, and thought we should do something together.

How long did you work on the story? How long did you work on the movie?
I wrote a poem, which looks like a short story in 2011 and shot it as a short film. It ended up being the first Philippine short film to be in the Official Competition of Berlinale.

A year and a half were spent tinkering with various versions of the full-length screenplay. We shot for four days while a storm raged on in 2013, did the post-production at Post-Republic in Berlin in 2014, and then premiered it in the Tokyo International Film Festival later that year.

Why the sharp bend toward the Japanese, by the way? What inspired you?
That’s just the trailer, which we made for the world premiere in Tokyo (though I’m a fan of Japanese extreme cinema). The film has a million and one influences from the Surrealists, the Kundiman masters, the French New Wave, lovers-on-the-lam flicks, and so on and so forth.

Based on the trailer, the soundtrack and scoring are delicious! So, a two part question: first who took care of the scoring?
“Ruined Heart”, the song in the trailer is something I wrote. It’s performed by Bing Austria & The Flippin’ Soul Stompers who’ll also be performing during the after-party on the 28th at Big Sky Mind.

I composed the main theme before the actual shooting. Ace saxophonist Pete Canzon and Tadanobu Asano on kudyapi performed the melody live on-screen.

My main co-scorer is Brezel Goring of the Berlin-based French-German band, Stereo Total. Stereo Total made several variations of the theme and we also jammed together in some of the tracks. Brezel will be flying in for the Philippine premiere. He will also perform at the after-party.

 

And second, which artists or songs can people expect? Do you have a personal favorite?
It’s really an eclectic mix-tape with a lot of standouts. To name a few: Australian singer-songwriter Scott Matthew also did his version of the “Ruined Heart” motif; Psychobilly pioneer Hasil Adkins’ “She Said”. The living legends: Mabuhay Singers performs the melancholic “Bakit Mo Ako Pinaluluha” live on-screen and an electric steel guitar reworking of Pachelbel’s Canon.

Are there any “iconic” Manila locations that people can look forward to in the movie?
We mainly shot in Quezon City, Antipolo, and Manila. One of our locations is the Manila North Cemetery, the oldest and largest cemetery in the Philippines, where the living literally resides with the dead.

There seems to be a lot of “iconic” Manila experiences here. Like MondoManila, did you want to showcase the urban decay reality of Manila in the movie?
Manila is urban decay. It’s the rectum of the Philippines. When you set a story in Manila, it’s inevitable to show this reality. Crime and betrayal happen all the time in Manila. Nothing is incidental, accidental, occidental, oxymoronic.

In the trailer, it was mentioned that the film is “Based on a love letter to the storm”. What does this mean?
It was written during a storm, it was shot during a storm. The storm is this woman I can’t get my mind off.

Ruined Heart will have its one-time screening on Aug 28, 7pm at UP CineAdarna. PHP200. Get your tickets here.

Watch the trailer below:



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