Service (film)

Service caused a stir in the Philippines with its loud ambient noise and its graphic depiction of sex and nudity. Submitted to the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board for public exhibition in 2008, the movie survived with two major cuts to sex scenes and was rated an R18.

Such was the advance international buzz of the film that it was invited to compete at the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival, being the 3rd overall entry from the Philippines (following the films of director Lino Brocka, Jaguar and Bayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim). Its premiere at the festival was marked by the walking out of several veteran film critics who protested Mendoza's version of "misery porn."

On 30 January 2009, the film premiered in New York. Writing for The New York Times, its chief film critic Manohla Dargis described the film: "The heavenly bodies that populate our films bring their own pleasures ... alighting onscreen as if from a dream. But the bodies in [‘Serbis’], which received little love at the 2008 Cannes, are not heaven-sent, but neither are they puppets in a contrived nightmare. Rather, they lust, sweat, desire and struggle with the ferocious truth." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave Service two and a half out of four stars, stating that "[i]f you see only one art film this month, this shouldn't be the one. If you see one every week, you might admire it."[3]