Green Rocking Chair

Roxlee is a film maker with a special sense of humour. He draws and writes comic strip stories that are absurd and surreal. Just as strange, creative and original are the animation films he makes. And his paintings. And his musical performances. Yes, Roxlee is a versatile guy. Here, he is the protagonist in a fiction film that has the form of a documentary. He undertakes a quest into the use of Baybayin, an old form of writing that was developed before the Spanish colonists set foot in the Philippines in 1521. Does Baybayin still exist as an actively written language? That’s what Roxlee wonders at the start of the quest.
But gradually it becomes apparent that the film maker is interested in more than just pre-colonial writing. With his eye for the absurd within everyday events, he makes an unusual portrait of his country and of his compatriots. An unpolished portrait that has been made with modest means, but that is rich in crazy insights and strange humour. In this sense, Roxlee is himself like one of the characters in his surrealist comic-strip stories. And seen through his eyes and his camera, the everyday reality of the Philippines is also a kind of comic strip. The film also comprises real animation about the fable of the monkey and the tortoise. (GjZ)

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