Tracing emotions in film
Petersen Vargas sets scenes rich in melancholy
“I like watching and making sad films,” reads filmmaker Petersen Vargas’ Instagram bio. In his tiny apartment in Pasig, the afternoon sun floods the space. Amidst the jumble of books and boxes of DVDs, Vargas’ cat Wong Kat Wai, named after the famous Hong Kong filmmaker, sits placidly, her tail waving. There’s no sense of melancholy here, but there remains a hint of enigma in the 24-year-old filmmaker.
Vargas has an innate interest in storytelling. When he was younger, in fact, he used to write stories on 1/4 pads of paper and sell them to his classmates at P10 each. As he grew older, he started leaning towards morose narratives. Vargas’ most notable films Lisyun Qng Geografia, his thesis film at the UP Film Institute, and 2 Cool 2 Be 4gotten, his first full-length film, both revolve around the themes of friendship and lost love. “Sadness is the feeling that I understand better,” he says.
What’s with the sad films?
I think it comes from my personality. I don’t find myself funny. People describe me as emotional to a fault. I’ve always found it satisfying to cry over movies. In fact, before, my qualifier for finding a film good is if it made me cry.
I think art in itself is sad.
The process of creating something is like suffering. In filmmaking, they also liken it to giving birth. 2 Cool came with birth pains. When you’ve given birth to the material, the actual birthing, the screening of the film is weirdly the most painful part.
What would you say is the saddest film that you’ve seen?
Actually, the saddest ones don’t make you cry. There’s just this very heavy feeling inside of you after you’ve watched them.
Your first full-length film was written by a different person. How’s your directorial process?
I got to be a fan of the material. When I first read [fellow Kapampangan filmmaker] Jason Paul Laxamana’s script, it was as if I were a fan digging into this awesome material. I studied it free of my personal biases. When it’s your own work, it’s harder, because it’s a dialogue with yourself. With 2 Cool, it was like having a dialogue with someone who was very different from me. I treat personal work as fiction so I’d be desensitized to the actual pain and sadness it caused me. The process is actually cleansing. If your life were a film with a three-act structure, what point would you be at now? I hope it’s like a Lav Diaz epic and we are just in the first 15 minutes. I hope the first long shot is not finished yet. I’m so hungry to do so many things, and I think there’s more to do. 2 Cool would be the inciting incident, because it’s that one thing that changes the trajectory.
And what’s the music you imagine playing during those first 15 minutes?
There’s this band called Memory Drawers, and I’m delighted with their songs. Maybe is a favorite and I love how it captures a moment spectacularly. I love how well they know their music.
What is one thing that you don’t want people to remember about you?
How do you answer that? I guess I don’t want to be remembered as that sad filmmaker. I want to be remembered as someone who gave his heart to his films, to his work.
“I treat personal work as fiction so I’d be desensitized to the actual pain and sadness it caused me.”