Watch list

The second film of Filipino director Ben Rekhi was presented in the official competition and was one of the losers of this festival, with the preference of the voters going to the films The slaughterhouse (Jury Prize), The law of Teheran (Grand Prize and Critics' Prize) and the film The black box (Audience Prize). For Watch list does not demerit for all that and has imposed itself as one of the best films presented at Reims Polar. Certainly this film is not new and was released in the Philippines in February 2020. In this one, Maria (Alessandra de Rossi), whose husband was killed, becomes an informant for the local police to protect her three children from drug lords. 

The Philippine does not seem to be a country in which it is good to live, between the drug traffickers in place and who can freely do their business and an omnipresent corruption, the bloody report of this film is striking. It is easy to understand, seeing the poverty of the majority of the inhabitants, that executions in the street become commonplace. Faced with groups of traffickers who have a hold on both law enforcement and members of the government, people end up losing their bearings like Maria and is forced to infiltrate a kind of punitive militia that terrorizes a population that does not have the means to fight. 

While Maria is forced to participate in a program organized by the government following the execution in the street of her husband, she also realizes that this program has for real vocation to create a list of people who can pose a problem and thus to kill.  She then has no other choice for her survival and that of her three children than to become an informant and to help a local policeman Ventura (Jake Macapagal) to try to stay alive. 

Watch List is a truly shocking film that is not afraid to take a hard look at the Philippines. This powerful social drama is at the same time a dive into the urban hell of a Manila slum. Ben Rekhi's inspired direction is as much like that of a breathless documentary as it is a real cry for help. The film sheds light on a list made by the government of people with links to drug traffickers and who should be killed to prevent the development of these urban gangs. The punitive method without any real reason or proof shows that neither side (the side of the law and its antagonist) is good in itself. This system of gangs that wants to be close to justice but uses the same methods as the mobsters is really worrying and this film of a radical efficiency deserves to be discovered.

Watch list
A film by Ben Rekhi
Produced by Ronald Monteverde, Erik Matti, Brenda Gilbert & Ben Rekhi 
Screenplay by Rona Lean Sales & Ben Rekhi
Starring Alessandra de Rossi, Jake Macapagal, Arthur Acuña, Jess Mendoza, Angeli Bayani, Timothy Mabalot, Micko Laurente
Music by William Ryan Fritch
Director of Photography: Daniella Nowitz
Editing: Liza D. Espinas & Nick Ellsberg
Distribution: The Jokers Films (France)
Release date: February 19, 2020 (Philippines)
Running time : 94 minutes

Seen on May 26, 2021 (Reims Polar)

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