SARI-SARING SINENG PINOY

     Joselito Altarejos' Greatest Performance (2076 Kolektib, Pelikula Indiopendent, Studio X, 2026) sets the stage for a movie wholly consumed by Sunshine Cruz's single, hypnotizing presence. Her Yvonne Rivera, invites a tantalizing mixture of fascination and pity. Less nonfiction portrait than a poetic framing of domestic frustrations, Greatest Performance is a lot more than flailing show business aspirations. On the surface, Yvonne’s hardships aren’t unique. In Greatest Performance, Altarejos positions his star in the grips of inner turmoil while constantly battling to display self-confidence. As Yvonne revisits the possibility of returning to show business, the validity of her earlier efforts gradually come into play.  Though her complaints occasionally reach a pathetic extreme, the story’s dramatic weight holds: She’s the embodiment of genuine talent squandered by personal hangups and debilitating gender barriers, Yvonne is trapped somewhere in between the two. Altarejos fashions a narrative out of Yvonne's disarray by capturing her in small asides in between the greater developments in her emerging crisis. She reflects on her mistakes and rehearses. Even so, by virtue of Yvonne’s uneasy state of affairs, the movie delivers a canny look at the ills of the entertainment industry. Ms. Cruz expresses emotion no less candidly than she would in any context: Even her rawest confessions are delivered with an actorly awareness of dramatic consequence, there’s little doubting her ferocity as an actress. A performer is different, to be sure someone uniquely conscious of the various roles they must inhabit and trained to do so but in degree, not in kind.

     Actor Soliman Cruz looks to be having a field day behaving badly as filmmaker Mar Alvarez, the personification of the cruelty women experience in the industry. While Oliver Aquino is totally committed to his character, Drew's trajectory. In more precocious hands, Altarejos' densely self-reflexive premise could come across as coldly eggheaded, but his formal conviction and profound empathy for his subject ensure the film never feels ruled by its concept. The helmer also acts as his own editor and writer, and his crisp, refined work in both those departments contributes to the films' simultaneous sense of intimacy and intent examination, but his camera’s investment in Ms. Cruz is unwavering — and she returns it with equally committed dependence. Greatest Performance convincingly reconciles private passion with public desire by suggesting that, for women in particular, the 21st-century limelight is always on, no matter the setting or venue. Altarejos' extraordinary collaboration with Cruz is a playful, provocative examination of self-performance. As much as Greatest Performance is a rare and singular portrait of a woman struggling to stage a comeback, it succeeds best as a layered commentary on the many facets of performance. Perhaps the most refreshing aspect of Greatest Performance, in the end, is how much of a true collaboration it is between filmmaker and subject. Ms. Cruz stands as Altarejos' creative equal: an emotionally charged, complicated and melancholic spirit who lives through intersecting roles in order to find her own peace of mind. Exhilarating and unnerving in equal measure, Greatest Performance is that rare film, that could be said to capture life in its purest, most lyrical form.

Director/Writer: Joselito Altarejos

Directors of Photography: Manuel Garcellano, Marco Bertillo Mata

Editor: Joselito Altarejos

Sound Desigbn: Alex Tomboc, Bebet Casas

Musical Score: Arbi Barbarona

Production Design: 2076 Kolektib

 

     Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr.'s Poon (Banana Entertainment, C-Frame Production, 2025) is an exceptional horror film, but not in the way most would assume. Its general horror content may have been recycled from previous movies and its inner intelligence and coherence may no longer awe discerning horror fans that have followed recent Filipino movie trends. Nevertheless, where Poon truly impresses is in its setting-construction, in the unhurried building of atmosphere, in the attention to detail and characterization, and of course, its top-notch acting. Alix delivers a formally confident story within a detailed family dynamic and thoughtfully conceived visual metaphors to reflect them. The horror erupts from his characters, their relationships and behavior toward one another, as opposed to some random external force exacting its influence on the family. Their broken feelings lay the groundwork for something even more terrifying, all of it pouring from raw emotions, captured by the impressive cast. In the first scene, the family is struck by a tragedy. Peping (Ronaldo Valdez) a man whose domineering presence has tormented his wife, the distraught Berta (Gina Pareno) for some time. Sol (Jaclyn Jose) is suffused with torment of the most lived-in kind. Ria's (Janice de Belen) own relationship with her husband, Daniel, may have troubles, too (weighty ones, given that he’s played by the ever-somber Allen Dizon). Ria's eldest child, Carlo (Will Ashley), the disaffected teenage son, whose younger sister, Faye (Althea Ablan) with the dead stare of a statue, begins to experience visual manifestations. The house becomes an ominous focal point for their despair. As Ria and Mae’s (Ara Mina) tensions with their sister Adele (Lotlot de Leon) grow more extreme (she suffers from shocking nightmares), Faye’s tendency to sleepwalk adds another unpredictable variable to the growing impression of a hidden force overseeing their lives. And then it happens—a disturbing accident sets the horror into motion. Alix plays well in this sandbox, slowly pulling his cords tighter and tighter until the tension threatens to snap everyone in two. But the more we see, the more we become aware of something sinister in the air. Jerry B. Gracio's screenplay masterfully keeps us off balance, preventing us from knowing if we’re seeing something real. Part of what makes Poon so unsettling is its stubborn refusal to reveal what subgenre it's playing in. Is it a psychological horror? A standard haunted house? A possession thriller? Something else? As soon as you think you’ve got a handle on what this movie is and what it’s trying to accomplish, it suddenly switches gears and begins playing in an entirely different milieu. This allows Alix to mix and match tropes to fit his ultimate aim, and while we might not always be shocked by what comes next, we’re often surprised by why it happens.

     A familiar blend of horror tropes is expertly employed by Alix without the usual gimmickry: the eerie appearance of a figure from a distance and the room with a disturbing secret. Strange things start happening to the family, particularly surrounding Sol's daughter. With her husband now gone, Berta delivers an outpouring of her family’s troubling history with tragedy and inexplicable death—a history she has perhaps never verbalized. And just when we think we understand the film’s horror rules, the rules change and it develops into something far more disturbing than we could have imagined. Poon isn't non-stop ghost action. It's more like a psychological thriller established, at first, as a family drama–but one that carefully builds the tension and anxiety to unbearable levels until something completely terrifying happens on the screen. Nevertheless, the film’s purpose, built in gradual pieces throughout, leads to disturbing sights and revelations, the unflinching and uncanny sort. Alix demonstrates with this astoundingly confident film that he’s more capable of orchestrating emotion, the fantastical and the appalling in a prolonged mood of uncertainty—all leading to a chilling grand design. The unbalanced approach to storytelling is perfectly matched by Alix’s cast, who seem to all implicitly trust their leader and are willing to follow him down his terrifying rabbit hole. Ablan impressively manages to be deeply sympathetic and fundamentally unsettling at the same time, De Leon delivers an intense, phenomenally complex performance. It’s Jose’s film though, drawing on such a well of emotions, she’s stressful to look at even in static imagery. And yet, as in most of her performances, there’s a resilience, in that tough pragmatic gaze. Sol is damned if she’s going to be a victim. Poon is an assault on your emotional response. And that’s where the film really shines–its ability to create emotional turbulence and how strange it is to associate those feelings alongside traditional horror-given emotion; fear. Poon is also a film that examines how a father’s past can haunt a family after his death, proving that the sins of our parents have lasting effects on our own psyches. The pain and the demons in Poon aren’t only literal; they’re the same ghosts that torture families struggling with grief. The realism, the death and the pain of Poon are nearly impossible to separate. 

Direction: Adolfo Borinaga Alix, Jr.

Screenplay: Jerry B. Gracio

Director of Photography: TM Malones

Editors: Xila Ofloda, Mark Llona

Music: Eigen Ignacio

Production Design: Jay Custodio

Sound Design: Immanuel Verona, Fatima Nerikka Salim

 

     Adolfo Borinaga Alix, Jr's Pila (Global Japan Entertainment, Feminine Annex, Noble Wolf, Astral 88, 2026) centers on a relationship between poor, struggling adults, showing how human connection helps them survive in awful economic conditions More broadly, it forges a connection between its audience and a social class from which most of them will be very far removed. It’s a film about the unsustainable condition of being poor and alive, which admittedly sounds like a grueling experience. But Pila seeks understanding—it seeks to connect—and understanding is innately hopeful. From the very first, Regina (Gina Pareño), is in a perfect storm of bureaucratic misery. What follows is her experience being part of that system where a person is just a number and where there is little place for basic human understanding and compassion. All this may sound mundane and even dull, but the film is anything but that. Under Alix’s nuanced direction, we follow Regina as she makes friends and does everything in her power to make her own life bearable. Pareño plays Regina without pathos, yet she extracts tears from us with the brave face her character puts on, masking the frustration of her situation. Pareño's witty habitation of Regina builds to emotional crescendos that shake with great dramatic force. What really holds our attention, however, is the camerawork, a single unbroken take of some 101 minutes, which is quite an achievement. Sure, similar feats have been done before, but here it grabs us early on and pulls us into the story, much as Regina herself is pulled into the unfolding drama. 

     Pila fashions itself as a social drama about the poor, but it also has plenty to say about the indignities of aging and where the two intersect: turns out being elderly and poor are a deadly combination. Regina discovers she has missed the digital revolution. When you’re poor, problems have a way of compounding. It’s as frustrating as it is relatable. And probably necessary. The true power of this gentle, realistic film that displays the kindness of others and human hope, lies in showing ordinary people struggling on a daily basis against the system, that is paradoxically designed to keep them in the same miserable place. The scenes are mounted in such a compelling way that speaks volumes. Indeed, and throughout his solid career, Alix never needed special effects or modern techniques to create a powerful film. He just focuses on simple characters, which we can easily identify ourselves with and exposes their plausible problems with heart and emotion. Despite the film’s deliberate pace and quiet tone, Alix isn’t interested in letting anybody off the hook with a happy ending. Escapist cinema, it is not. But with Pila, he is using the medium for one of its most crucial purposes: to shine a light on injustices he sees around him, as well as on our capacity for human decency. The greatest virtue of Pila is its patience in confronting painstakingly the incremental humiliations visited on the neediest in society. Alix's film is about empathy, a portrait of ordinary people, blunt, bracing yet loving and far, far from mere polemic.

Screenplay: Ralston Jover

Director of Photography: Nelson Macabatbat, Jr., LFS

Production Designer: Adolfo Alix, Jr.

Music: Mikoy Morales

Sound Design: Immanuel Varona

Directed By: Adolfo Borinaga Alix, Jr.

     What makes writer/director Zig Dulay's Huling Halik (Lexuality Entertainment, 2011) work so well are the tiny details packed within each scene; the blocking of actors within a frame, a particular line of dialogue, a glance or a longing look. The characters in orbit of the affair know how damaging it is to them and others, but the allure of lust is too strong. Dulay knows this and uses that on the viewer. We know as well as the characters that they shouldn’t abide by JM's (Kenjie Garcia) every wish, but Dulay and his cast make us absolutely want them to. That duality is part of Ili's (Joeffrey Javier) arc. He is clearly a victim of JM's emotional onslaught yet, he can’t seem to break away from him. The intricacies of such delicate themes are in full view to dissect on their own accord. Garcia imbues JM's behavior naturally. He dominates any space he enters. You feel that JM is a young man who is in love with the idea of love and his slow descent into desperation for love is intoxicating to watch. But even the most enlightened of young people still have feelings that can get hurt, despite their intellectual rejection of traditional social mores. Dulay gives his actors the space to develop complex characters that make us feel their unhappiness and disillusion. The film captures the mood of relationships in transition without ever being condescending or judgmental. That’s why the sex scene is so pivotal to Huling Halik as a whole. You need to believe this attraction between them to make sense of everything that happens next. Brutal honesty melds with nuanced passion to create a staggering emotional intensity, culminating in a resolve that is nothing less than heartbreaking. 

     Bringing empathy to JM, Garcia gives one of the best performances of his career. He is visibly working through a never-ending stream of complicated emotions. He harbors a suppressed melancholy at every turn. Even a minor interaction is tinged with soul-bearing honesty, creating an emotional mystery of sorts whose answers always lie on the tip of the movie's tongue. JM dominates the frame and that’s because he’s the driving force here, the one whose attraction sets the stage for all that follows. Acting opposite him is Javier, whose own character’s journey is fascinating. Don’t mistake his quietness for weakness, as Ili seems to be the ultimate voice of reason in the film. Dulay applies personal vulnerability to the characters, the emotional motifs in Huling Halik are splashed with little complication. JM and Ili move and breathe like real people, allowing their lives to surpass the singularity of romance. Along the way, this romantic tale is wryly amusing, curious and very beautiful to look at, whether its the actors or Baguio itself. It's notable that, despite the character fueling the action, the film is not histrionic. What makes it come alive, ultimately, isn't the physical nudity, but rather the emotional nudity displayed by Garcia and Javier. Huling Halik tackles the themes of fidelity, love, sex and bisexuality while embracing the messiness of relationships. There's not a single scene that overstays its welcome or moves too slowly. It’s nearly impossible to capture the essence of Huling Halik into words, as it’s essentially defined by the many contradictions that make us human. It can be charming and passionate, but it’s also quiet, intimate and heartbreaking, often at the same time. We see its characters when they’re vulnerable, carefree, impulsive and horny, but they can also be cruel to one another when they let their ego take over. There’s a whole lot of emotion in this sexy, endearing, devastating film. Dulay and his incredible cast compellingly explore that idea in the sexiest and most thought-provoking manner possible. You’ll fall for the characters, but you’ll also fall for the slyly intelligent filmmaking too. 

Cinematographers: Marc Patiag, Tristan Garcia, Zig Dulay

Production Designer: Kenneth Villanueva

Editor: Zig Dulay

Sound: Dennis Dimaandal

Music: Gary Granada

Writer & Director: Zig Dulay

 

     The idea of making a movie based around the epidemic of missing women is startling: to turn this issue into entertainment feels exploitative and disrespectful. Though it is not impossible to make a genre film about social problems, it is a difficult task. When the focus is on creating an engaging film, the question arises of whether there is sufficient space for discussions of real-world violence. Too often, these considerations are sacrificed in favor of narrative thrills and genre conventions. And when its plot is centered around a socio-political problem but still focuses almost exclusively on the protagonists, its ability to provide an in-depth look at these issues is further diminished. This melancholy murk acts like a psychological wet blanket on what could have been a crackling whodunit. The slow reveal of Olivia’s (Kelley Day) close friendship with Isabela (Yuki Sonoda) does nothing to heighten or illuminate the present drama. Director Joel C. Lamangan mistakes withholding and then abruptly delivering information for dramatic building toward a payoff. When Lamangan decides to come clean about Olivia’s past the results are like emotion-streaked information dumps. Yet as the film progresses, Lamangan strips away everything that initially makes it so distinctive, adding artificial moments and tension that feel tired and irrelevant. It is cheaply used as a shortcut to drama, but never actually comes alive. The ostensible social issue concerning All About Her (3:16 Media Network, 2026) is the disproportionate rate of domestic violence and murder faced by women. It’s difficult to call the film a complete failure given both its general effectiveness as a procedural and its attempts to shed light on social issue rarely portrayed on film. 

     Enough worthwhile elements are present to make the shaky execution seem all the more disappointing. Day isn't able to bring much depth to Olivia, a character who makes up half of a cliché, same goes with Sonoda’s Isabela. Suarez (Angelica Cervantes), a female NBI agent forms the emotional center of an investigation into wrongful death. All About Her focuses on the systemic, unchecked violence committed against women. It reveals interest in the interiority of law enforcement personnel—especially young women. As the film progresses, we find out that Isabela and William (Tony Labrusca) spend the evening in an abandoned vacant lot with William, brutally beating her. True abjection cannot be experienced by male characters in cinema. Even when robbed of their weapons or jobs or status, men are still in possession of a metanarrative of power—they’re not the right candidate for catharsis. This metanarrative is made up of a constellation of details. The movie’s structure probably does not require the man to experience sexual violence, as if often requires of its women protagonists. One reason why we never see men gripped by fear in our popular narratives is that men like to feel powerful and most of the time, they’re the ones telling the stories. But genre awareness can give us more than the dynamics baked into a movie’s plot. Genre is a comparative idea—you have to see across movies in order to get a hold on a genre, which inevitably means that some details get flattened out. What movies do with our anxieties (why do cops kill?) changes from work to work and from year to year. If we are to learn anything new about our own hopes and fears for law enforcement, we have to find a new point of entry for movie-making: not cautionary pornography. There’s something else going on here and masculinity is at its heart. The movie that can wring catharsis out of that will be a long time coming.

Directed By: Joel C. Lamangan

Screenplay: Quinn Carillo

Director of Photography: Journalie Payonan

Editing: Hannah Buhrman

Production Design: Cyrus Khan

Musical Scorer: Dek Margaja

Sound Design: Paulo Estero