The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros

Review By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

The benefit of independent film is the opportunity to view different aspects of life, whether through different cultures, different styles of storytelling, or different lifestyles. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon, of all things, an independent film directed at gay audiences that is from the Phillipines of all places. As a result, what emerged is a very unique, yet highly fascinating two-fold insight into not only the life of a gay preadolescent, but into life in the urban Phillipines with the film The Blossoming Of Maximo Olivares, now available on DVD.

Maximo Olivares (Nathan Lopez), or Maxi as he is more commonly called, could not be anymore different. He is 12 year-old boy who is gay and lives in Manila and is completely content with that fact as he dresses rather flamboyantly in girls’ tops and wears a barrette on his head.

Not going to school, he spends his days hanging out with his friends playing beauty pageant, watching bootleg DVD’s in a makeshift theatre, and gambles in order to make money. He also has a poor and thieving, but loving family who wholeheartedly accept his sexuality that he takes care of, his father Paca (Soliman Cruz) and his brothers Bogs (Ping Medina) and Boy (Neil Ryan Sese).

Soon enough, a new cop named Victor (JR Valentin) emerges in town who Maxi develops a crush on and begins to develop a close friendship with. However, the boy becomes increasingly torn between the two different loves in his life after Boy commits murder and Maxi is caught inadvertently trying to help him cover it up with Victor pressing the boy to cooperate with authorities.

Undoubtedly a unique mix of gay film and foreign drama, The Blossoming Of Maximo Oliveros is a highly fascinating film. It’s locale in Manila reveals many idiosyncratic insights, such as how the townspeople accept the young Maxi’s highly flamboyant style and personality and how the people are so impoverished that there is an often hostile tension between the people, who often engage in illegal activity to survive, and the cops.

The film’s a bit uneven as it seems to start off focusing on Maxi’s highly unique personality, which is performed with great effervescent charm here by Nathan Lopez, then segues into more of a story about choosing between the love of family and the more infatuated love. While the idea of a boy bonding with a man fully aware of that person’s infatuations is potentially bit off-putting for more pedophilia-sensitive Western sensibilities, director Auraeus Solito and writer Michiko Yamamoto manages to pull this off in a way that comes out more benign and platonic.

The DVD’s picture quality is in the 1:78:1 widescreen