NYAFF INTERVIEW: Stars of ‘Apocalypse Child’ open up on new surf drama
Apocalypse Child, featured at this year’s New York Asian Film Festival, is a moving portrait of characters trying to figure out life’s problems on the beautiful beaches of Baler, the heart of the Philippine’s surf scene. Sid Lucero plays Ford, a surf instructor who’s uncertain about the identity of his father, and Annicka Dolonius plays Fiona, a young woman who has come to Baler to visit her dying grandmother. The two strike up a relationship, but old secrets and new revelations put a stress on their newfound connection.
The Mario Cornejo-directed film, which also stars Gwen Zamora, R.K. Bagatsing and Ana Abad Santos, explores the inability to outrun one’s past. Issues of the present and future are beholden to pent-up emotions and mythical understandings of one’s background. It’s an atmospheric story, co-written by Cornejo and Monster Jimenez, that adds the beach community as a pivotal character.
“I went in, and read a couple of times and met with Mario and Monster a few times, and the more I learned about the film, the more I was like, I have to do this,” Dolonius said in a recent phone interview. “I got emotionally attached to the character of Fiona.”
Lucero echoed Dolonius’ sentiments and added that the unique location of Baler was a draw. “The fact that we were going to shoot on the beach for about 20 days, almost a month,” he said of his reasoning for signing on to the project.
Ford and Fiona, who are at the heart of Apocalypse Child, have a pleasant, easygoing relationship for the first part of the film. What throws their summer bliss into disarray is the arrival of Ford’s longtime best friend, played by Bagatsing, and his fiancé, played by Zamora. Ford and his friend, who is a new senator representing the local area, obviously had a falling out, and their conversations with each other are now like expert chess matches. Plus, there’s the fact that his friend’s fiancé would like to take surf lessons with Ford, which leads to their inevitable attraction for each other.
Fiona, throughout all of this drama, is caught in the middle.
“I saw her as somebody who was in the middle,” Dolonius said. “She was caught somewhere, and she was very lost. And she didn’t know where she was going, so she sort of is floating in the middle of. She’s just wading. … I didn’t think that she knew what she was going to be doing with her life, and so she was just sort of on a beach trying to learn surfing because I think she’s just like that.”
Further complicating the narrative and adding a new layer of drama is Ford’s mother, played by Abad Santos. She had Ford when she was only a teenager, and they come off more as friends than a mother and son. They get along, drinking and conversing into the night, but Ford has unresolved issues with her and the myth she concocts about his father.
Fiona is accepted into this family and is immediately drawn to their friendship and love. “She got attached to this person [Ford], and in fact I think she got attached to this family, this mom and her son, who sort of, they didn’t take her in, but they let her in,” Dolonius said. “They let her in, and I think she got attached because in my head she didn’t have family anymore. She was alone, and she was trying to deal with that.”
Lucero sees his central character as stuck in a beautiful beach community, where Apocalypse Now was filmed and that harbors many mysteries. To this day, even after watching the final film, Lucero is unsure of the complicated relationship between Ford and his best friend. That type of storytelling and character development, which doesn’t easily fit into a cookie-cutter mold, makes Apocalypse Child a wholly original movie.
Surfing is also a main motivator for Ford. “Even though he was the best surfer in town, it just didn’t appeal to him anymore,” Lucero said.
Dolonius said she likes the ambiguity of the narrative in Apocalypse Child. They were asking questions when they made the film, and they are still asking questions when sharing the movie with an audience. “It’s really nice to be able to talk about the film and the characters, and hear what other people are thinking about it and what they get from it,” she said. “It’s really great.”
She added: “It was definitely a challenge. It was very rewarding to get through it as an actor because I felt that we were able to capture really beautiful things. It was definitely really difficult. With this film, you put so much of yourself [into it], and you get so attached. It really takes a part of you. It takes a chunk out of your being.”
After putting so much into the dramatic acting during the day, the ensemble had a nice chance for a respite in the evening. “The good thing about it though is every time there’s a scene, a heavy scene, after the scene where are we,” Lucero asked. “We have the entire beach to recuperate.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
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