SARI-SARING SINENG PINOY

     Jun Robles Lana's Ang Dalawang Mrs Reyes (ABS-CBN Film Productions, Inc., Star Cinema, Quantum Films, The Idea First Company, 2018) does a fine job of rendering its characters’ emotional journeys. Lianne (Judy Ann Santos) and Cindy (Angelica Panganiban) form an unlikely bond after the revelation that their husbands Gary (Joross Gamboa) and Felix (JC de Vera) are leaving them for each other. This arouses complex, mercurial feelings and Ang Dalawang Mrs Reyes portrays those feelings with acuity and empathy. The conceit helps the movie to not feel redundant even as it trades in well-worn breakup tropes and odd-couple hijinks. In fact, the interplay between the relatively novel premise and the all-too-familiar material gives it some edge. Is being ditched because of sexual orientation all that different from being ditched because passions have dimmed or because your husband was sleeping with another woman? At first, it doesn’t seem different at all. Did the wives express any empathy for their exes’ identity struggles? But soon, it sinks in that this is a very specific shock hitting very specific people. Ang Dalawang Mrs Reyes  joins a pop-culture boomlet of stories about people coming out as something other than what their loved ones thought they were. Often, the people affected by the coming-out receive as much or more attention than the person who’s actually coming out. The true goal of Ang Dalawang Mrs Reyes is laughs, gained sometimes at the expense of genuine feeling, but funny is funny. Santos and Panganiban are both gifted at physical comedy and are very giving actors, one never overshadowing the other, each giving the other room to be funny, in turn. The best love story of the film is that of Gary and Felix. Just as the main characters is a rarity, so is the portrayal of gay men who are not desexualized. They hold hands and show genuine affection for each other. While Ang Dalawang Mrs Reyes is in no way perfect, it is still a pleasure watching Santos and Panganiban vibe comedically together. If only there were more of it.

     Ang Dalawang Mrs Reyes makes everything known by way of a crystal-clear hi-def presentation. The digitally shot picture reveals excellent textural details and superb overall clarity. There's not a flat or less than ideally reproduced texture in the film. All of the basics, skin, hair, clothes and a number of choice environments are in perfectly good working visual order. Colors are lively and punchy. Contrast is fairly even. The picture pushes perhaps ever so slightly warm but certainly favors a broader neutrality. Skin tones are healthy and black levels are perfectly deep. Noise is visible in lower light shots but never egregious in density or distraction. No additional source or encode flaws are apparent. The PCM soundtrack supports the movie's fairly boisterous sonic needs quite well. Clarity is excellent and the low end support is superb, giving weight and depth to what serves as the movie's sonic heartbeat, whether in the many instances when songs are overlaid atop the film or when they are an integral part of it, such as when Lianne and Cindy go to a gay bar. Dialogue otherwise drives the film and its presentation is without obvious flaw. Ang Dalawang Mrs Reyes is basically a sitcom dolled up with great actors, trying to pretend it belongs in the same room as Bwakaw (2012) and Die Beautiful (2016).

Sound Design: Lamberto Casas Jr., Albert Michael M. Idioma

Music: Emerzon Texon

Editor: Maynard Pattaui

Production Design: Marxie Faolen Fadul

Director of Photography: Tey Clamor

Screenplay: Elmer Gatchalian, Jun Robels Lana

Directed By: Jun Robles Lana

     A memorably bitter highlight in Adolf Alix, Jr.’s Padre de Familia (CCM Creatives, 2015) was the coruscating funeral scene. The tone of this disastrous wake is set by Noel (Coco Martin), whose resentment against his mother, Aida (Nora Aunor) as well as various other near and dear, get a thorough and unhinged airing. There’s just too much potential in Noel’s outbursts and the revelations they unleash. The last act is a series of gobsmacking handbrake turns which send practically the entire cast off packing. Martin’s utterly convincing portrayal of a self-sacrificing young man whose journey into the world is tenuous and difficult is one of those cinematic gifts, a multi-faceted gem that can be appreciated anew each time it is brought out for inspection.

     Mother of the family, Aida, is probably the most interesting character in the film, played to perfection by Aunor. She stubbornly resists any external show of the emotional turmoil she undoubtedly feels. Aida inexplicably gives priority to keeping up appearances and wants to give no one outside the family any inkling of their troubles. But her pretence extends within the family where she comes across as disconnected, her brittle surface barely conceals the depth of insecurity and grief that lies underneath. The strain between Aida and Noel is written with raw truth, it is achingly apparent. In one of the most finely wrought scenes of the film, Aida attempts to bridge the gap but she possesses neither the energy nor the skill to break through the emotional carapace with which her son has armoured himself. When Aida reaches the point where she is ready to confront the issues that have created a wall between her and her son, Noel pushes her away, by obliquely criticizing her relationship with Job (Joem Bascon). Padre de Familia artfully affirms a universal truth about the human condition. It epitomizes what a Filipino independent film can be when the director is willing to abandon the safety net.

Sound Design: Addiss Tabong

Music: Von de Guzman

Editing: Renewin Alano, Benjamin Tolentino

Production Design: Adolfo Alix, Jr., Bobet Lopez

Director of Photography: Albert Banzon, FCS

Written By: Jerry Gracio, Nikki Bunquin

Direction: Adolfo Alix, Jr.

     In Jerry Lopez Sineneng's Soltera (Star Cinema Productions, Inc., 1999), Eric (Diether Ocampo) is revealed to be highly admirable despite his lower-class manner and Sandra (Maricel Soriano) is shown to be a prisoner of the very same pretensions she once prized. Soltera is greatly helped by the presence of Ocampo, who was born to play life-denying young heroes and especially Soriano who has made a career coaxing characters out of their buttoned-down ways. She gives a spirited, fully formed performance that easily transcends the story's many preconceptions and cliches. The film's only surprises can be credited to these two resourceful actors, since every plot development can be seen coming from very far away. But before it falls into formula, Soltera raises interesting questions about those romances that fall outside of socially approved formulas. It is the easiest thing in the world to slide comfortably into an appropriate relationship with a partner who conforms with the tastes and prejudices of your social circle. Yet many people nevertheless find themselves in nonconformist relationships and my guess is that the depth of feeling in those relationships is often greater. If your partner does not match society's definition of the sort of person you should be in love with, then presumably he or she fills some deeper need. That's the dilemma faced by Sandra. She has never met a man who reaches her more deeply than Eric does. Is it love? She doesn't know. It's need. It's compulsion. Yet he exists so far outside her social circle she doesn't want to let him in. The strength of the movie is when it deals with the subject of a nonconforming relationship. The best moments involve verbal bolts of lightning, comic insights that blindside us. But the weakness of the film is when it falls into the same sappy romantic cliches as countless other love stories. And yet there's a lot that's good in Soltera, involving the heart as well as the mind.

     This new digital transfer was created in 2K resolution primarily from the 35mm original camera negative. Excluding a few very small density fluctuations the entire film looks very healthy and all-around stable. In fact, even a couple of well-known shaky transitions (from the DVD release) look surprisingly good here. Needless to say, the entire film has a wonderful organic appearance. There are no traces of compromising degraining and sharpening corrections. There are a few areas where some momentary softness emerges, but it is quite easy to tell that these are inherited limitations. There are no distracting debris, cuts, damage marks, stains, or other significant age-related imperfections. It is very easy to tell that the audio has been restored because balance is excellent and dynamic movement very natural. To be perfectly clear, there are areas of the film where the soundtrack effectively adds an extra dose of flavor, there are no sudden spikes or drops in dynamic activity. The dialog is crisp, stable, and very easy to follow. Where Soltera really scores, however, is less in the handling of this unlikely romance as the way in which it cleverly builds up a persuasive sense of Sandra's social embarrassment as she realizes more and more that she wants Eric.

Sound Engineer: Ramon Reyes, STAMP

Musical Director: Jessie Lasaten

Film Editor: Marya Ignacio, FEGMP

Production Designer: Gil A. Morales, PDGP

Cinematography: Joe S. Batac, FSC

Screenplay: jun Lana, Jerry Lopez Sineneng

Directed By: Jerry Lopez Sineneng

     Regardless of artistic intentions and ingenuity, young directors were subject to the norms of the industry, the demands of producers, the caprices of stars, the wrath of critics, the law of the box office. In retrospect, the seventies come off as a glorious moment of innovative filmmaking, but they all faced varieties of deep trouble, many of which come to the fore in Ishmael Bernal's Pagdating sa Dulo (Frankesa Films, Inc., 1971). So it is with Bernal’s characters, to whose bearing he has always paid close attention. The very bearing and manner of speech that his characters exhibit, a kind of reserved expressiveness, a steadiness that is non-theatrical but in no way natural is itself a reflection of a personal style that flows directly into his films. Bernal's screenplay contains many moments to be savored by those who have enjoyed his long battle with the establishment. The film’s startling point is that none of these aesthetic sensations matter in the face of emotional devastation, in those desperate times where no cultural bauble will distract you from the uncomfortable sight of your deepest interior realms. Ching (Miss Rita Gomez) wields her knowledge around Pinggoy (Vic Vargas) as a way of leveling the playing ground, she’s a classic insecure female wounded by a man she suspects might be out of her league, but even worse, she’s tortured by the suspicions that Pinggoy stirs in Ching about herself. The pretense that Pagdating sa Dulo is about the struggle to maintain artistic integrity in a debased film community suddenly collapses and the notion is revealed to be indulgent and self-justifying. Pagdating sa Dulo seethes with ill feelings toward its audience, the industry, its characters and not least of all itself.

     Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, this new digital transfer was created in 4K resolution and restored by L'Immagine Ritrovata in Italy from a 16mm internegative. There are some extremely light vertical lines that occasionally pop up. Tiny flecks can be spotted as well. Detail and image depth, however, are very pleasing. Generally speaking, contrast levels also remain stable throughout the entire film. The blacks and whites are well balanced and there is a good range of healthy grays. There are no traces of problematic degraining corrections. Also, sharpening adjustments have not been performed. There are no serious compression issues, but I did notice some extremely light strobing during the first half of the film. Still, overall image stability is very good and the film has a very pleasing organic look. Audio clarity and depth are good, but occasionally there is very light background hiss that makes its presence felt. It is not distracting, but more sensitive viewers will obviously notice when the hiss becomes more prominent. The overall dynamic intensity is quite limited, but this should not be surprising considering the fact it was produced in 1971. Bernal’s work here is unquestionably that of a cinematic master, letting the story seep in on every level, creating a film about itself as well as about the sacrifices that any creative force makes willing or otherwise, to their art.

Director of Cinematography: Delfin Carretas

Sound Supervision: Luis S. Reyes STAMP

Editor: Teofilo de Leon

Director of Music: Francisco Buencamino

Screenplay & Direction: Ishmael Bernal

     In Elwood Perez's Sugar Daddy (Regal Films, Inc., 1977), irony, altruism, instantaneous blindness, overt sexuality and modernist interior design are all ladled onto the narrative frame without so much as the whisper of a suspicion that the whole enterprise ought to collapse even without the added weight of Perez's skepticism. Of course, Perez’s melodramas are far too rigorous and tightly wound even when his subject matter occasionally approaches emotional recklessness of a comparable magnitude. Perez’s specialty was chronicling with a merciless analytical bent (good humor? bad faith?) the mechanics of a soap opera. It becomes a cliché to celebrate Perez for his ruthless take on social mores and to overcompensate for deconstructing not only those behavioral habits but also how pop culture reflects and feeds them.

     Perez accentuates all the aspects that shouldn’t work, incidental coincidences, irrational decisions, sermons of nebulous denomination. His commitment to the ridiculous is what finesses that irony, but it’s not a safe irony. Sugar Daddy is a much more mysterious beast, one that doesn’t work without a belief in Perez’s form. A central aesthetic of Perez’s work is that the stories he has to tell are always (and knowingly) complicated by the ways he tells them. In particular, they emerge through the dichotomy he’s able to create between their visual design and the characters’ understanding of their circumstances. Sugar Daddy perfectly illustrates this. While its surface might suggest a ferociously straight face, they also point to other ways of understanding the drama unspooling before our eyes. And they achieve a moving balance between an empathy for the plight of the characters. Ricky Belmonte’s powerful contribution is often undervalued, as is Alma Moreno’s performance and the ironic distance which allows us to see them all in a different light.

Sound Supervision: Luis Reyes

Production Design: Pedro Perez, Ray Maliuanag

Film Editor: Ben Barcelon

Cinematography: Narciso Magcalas F.S.C.

Musical Direction: Demet Velasquez

Screenplay: Toto Belano

Directed By: Elwood Perez

     If Midnight Show (HPS Film Productions, 1979) is not among the worst of its kind, because its kind is among the worst of any kind. This is a bloodless murder thriller laced with very little sex. The suspense generated in this cheaply sensational film is episodic, rising at the time of the kill and receding into boredom at other times. The actors cannot be faulted. They bring more to the story than it really deserves. Lorna Tolentino gives an outstanding performance as Stella, the harried and distressed protagonist. Bembol Roco has the fairly thankless task of saying only what the movie needs him to say, he's limited by the fact that his killer has no real dimension or personality apart from his function as a plot device. Unfortunately, bewilderment comes more naturally to him than intelligence and his line readings, aiming for creepiness, just sound silly. Ruby Anna plays Mylene the dancer, who becomes the bland psycho's target. Ronald Corveau, is more convincing as Ronald, Stella’s dissembling boyfriend.

     Midnight Show is so ineptly made that key scenes take place offscreen. Logic isn't the problem with this movie, a lack of humanity is. It's a routine thriller that is, for the most part, slow moving and uneventful. I wouldn't really mind the  clichés and the tired old material so much, if the filmmakers had brought energy or a sense of style to the material. But Midnight Show seems unconvinced of its own worth. It's a tired, defeated film in which no one seems to love what they're doing, unless maybe it's a few of the character actors, like Arnold Mendoza and Nello Nayo (as Stella’s father), who have scenes they seem to relish. Director Leonardo L. Garcia is saddled with an emotionally empty script by Diego Cagahastian. The confusing plot is untangled at the end, though loose ends dangle all over. Midnight Show contains all the best clichés from more successful suspense movies. But the clichés exist in a vacuum. The events happen because they have happened in other thrillers and seemed like a good idea at the time. 

Cinematography: Ricardo Herrera

Editor: Rene Tala

Musical Direction: D'Amarillo

Screenplay: Diego Cagahastian

Directed By: Leonardo L. Garcia

     In Arsenio Bautista's misconceived comedy, a confused plea to look beyond appearances and see the overweight for their inner beauty, Dabiana (Seven Star Productions, 1977) lurches from sensitivity to tastelessness, spending half its time making fat jokes and the other half apologizing for them. It's doubtful that anyone could pull off such a difficult stunt, but here even Bautista, who normally delights in pushing the boundaries of acceptability, seem less certain of himself, as if paralyzed by taboos that aren't worth shattering. Dabiana, the 270-pound heroine played by Cecille Iñigo, has its cake and eats it, too. It gets away with fat jokes at the same time it seems to be on the side of the angels and inner beauty. Fortunately, there's more to it than that. What Bautista and writers Tony S. Mortel and Mau Samonte really want us to do is stop ducking the obvious, accept the world for what it is and keep laughing at it anyway. People shouldn't worry their pretty little heads over finding euphemisms. This is tough-minded and comes from a genuine comic spirit.

     Iñigo is a marvel. No shrinking violet, Dabiana stands up for herself as women her size must learn to do, but she also has the slight hesitancy of someone never quite comfortable with herself or completely able to hide her insecurity. She's shyly surprised that Pol (Allan Valenzuela) is paying so much attention to her new self as aspiring actress Susan Romero (Amy Austria). How will Pol behave when Susan comes out of her trance? It can only be a matter of time before he sees Susan as she actually is. Before that happens, we get glimpses of cellulite and double chins. Having set all this up, Dabiana's got to be funny, too. It would be pointless reverse-PC if they didn't come up with the laughs and for a while it looks as if we're in trouble. There are a couple of really sharp verbal zingers as well as some visual surprises that keep the audience guessing. There is some well- earned sentiment, too. The film might have worked had Bautista not treated the subject so broadly, or if they had included a few jokes in the final half-hour. Dabiana wears its good intentions on its sleeve, but if the overweight need a boost of self-esteem, fewer movies like this one would help.

Screenplay: Tony S. Mortel, Mauro G. Samonte

Music: Ernani Cuenco

Cinematography: Fortunato Bernardo, F.S.C.

Film Editor: Edgardo Vinarao

Sound Supervision: Rodolfo Baldovino

Directed By: Arsenio Bautista

     In my opinion, 'Merika lends much (most) of its success to Aunor. That's not to say it isn't a beautiful film, it's just a beautiful film that relies heavily on its lead to work, particularly because the story it aims to tell is so small in scope. Aunor's nuances, the way the whole narrative is refracted back at us through her movements and at times what feels like just her eyes, carries the film through all its own quiet uncertainties. You can see the wheels spinning, wheels of both deliberation trepidation in Aunor's eyes in particular, as she deals with losing things and gaining others (new friends, a career, a love story). It should be noted that Aunor's chemistry with everyone in the film is palpable and their performances are stunning as well. Still, I'd argue it's only because of Aunor that 'Merika never becomes compromised by its own confinement, but rather heightened because of it. Her powerful simplicity mirrors that of the film, as she steadily grows into something much larger and meaningful than the sum of its parts. It’s both rare and heartening to see a movie that grasps the poignancy of everyday life decisions, where to live, what job to take, who to partner with and how to press forward when every road promises something gained and something forever lost.

     Elwood Perez's Esoterika: Maynila (T. Rex Productions, Film Development Council of the Philippines, Tribute Entertainment, 2015) is funny, shocking and spectacularly turbo-charged. It creates a scary and beguiling electricity by allowing opposites to collide, horror and joy, colorful fantasy and grimy reality, history and hyper-modernity. The narrative structure of Esoterika: Maynila is perfect for a director like Perez, allowing himself to fast-forward between dramatic episodes at will and freeing him from the need to dwell too intimately on the finer shades of his characters' personalities. He's always been a filmmaker keener to play with form and tweak with tempo than to explore the complexities of human psychology. Yet the film, for all its breathless intensity rarely subverts expectations and in its final section never fails to grip or delight.

     It's easy to sense the excitement that Perez and his cinematographers Justin Santos and Japo Parcero felt while filming around Manila. They're alive to the jagged rhythms of the city, its palette of colors that are rich and surreal. The metropolis in Esoterika: Maynila is brighter and livelier than any we've seen before. Perez is a gifted stylist and, for better or worse, an indiscriminate sensualist, the kind of filmmaker capable of finding tactile pleasure wherever he looks. For the director, the city is above all, an endless source of motion and color. Perez has always been an energetic filmmaker, but in Esoterika: Maynila, he whips himself up to a state of euphoric intensity. It roots itself in a cynicism-free celebration of fate, love and social camaraderie, conveyed with big, bold colors and extreme camera angles.

Screenplay: Elwood Perez, Jessica Zafra

Cinematography: Justin Santos, Japo Parcero

Editing: George Jarlego

Musical Score: Nolan Diosana

Sound Supervision: Jethro Joaquin

Directed By: Elwood Perez

     It’s clear while watching Langis at Tubig (Sining Silangan, Inc., 1980) that try as he may, director Danny L. Zialcita and his cast can’t quite capture what makes studies of love and desire so achingly vital. Instead, the movie plays like an inept domestic drama. While the performances are outstanding across the board, make no mistake, this is Amy Austria’s show all the way. She plays the wounded, broken-down Pilar with an end-of-the-world fierceness. Austria’s Pilar is a spitfire and that only adds to why Dindo Fernando’s Bobby is so mind-boggling. What makes him so acerbic toward a woman who clearly loves him. And exactly what attracts him to Vilma Santos’s Cory? Indeed, the sum total of Santos's appeal hardly compares to a single one of Austria’s stabbing, penetrating looks. But the chief culprit here are not the actors (they’re all first-rate) but the script’s lack of a point of view. Arguably, the movie wants to pivot around Bobby. Zialcita even favors him in one brief scene but then, oddly enough, abandons it. Truly, every character suffers from Zialcita's dissipated approach, limited to ridiculous shows of brow-beating and glib, self-consciously revelatory remarks. Perhaps the worst casualty of this is Ronaldo Valdez, a charismatic actor whose Charlie is strictly window-dressing. If anything, the surfaces are where the movie excels. The lived-in spaces inhabited by its characters, their work lives, all feel vivid and authentic. But surfaces are finite and when Zialcita reaches his boundaries, they drop off into nothingness, having no sense of his characters’ souls to catch their fall.

     This new high-definition digital transfer was created from the only existing projection print. Thousands of instances of molds, warps, specks, unsteadiness, scratches, film grain, splice marks and static debris were hand cleaned. Some close-ups look quite pleasing, but elsewhere the image is rather soft and textures are problematic. Clarity, however, is mostly adequate and with a few minor exceptions, contrast levels are stable. Some extremely light grain has been retained, but it’s quite inconsistent and mixed up with light noise. The good news is that there are no traces of serious post-production sharpening. Unsurprisingly, the film does have a pleasing organic look. It is often weak but nevertheless a preferable one. Finally, some small damage marks and tiny horizontal lines are occasionally present, but I assume that they could not have been removed without dramatically affecting the integrity of the image. All in all, considering Central Digital Lab's strong record and dedication to high quality presentations, I think it is fair to speculate that this is likely the best Langis at Tubig could look at the moment. Generally speaking, the dialog is crisp, stable, and easy to follow. The few sequences where the music becomes prominent are also convincing. There is, however, some light background noise that occasionally pops up here and there. It is definitely not distracting, but its presence is certainly felt. At times, Langis at Tubig becomes predictable and ponderous but the accomplished performances keeps you wanting to know more.

Art Director: Peter Perlas

Sound Supervisor: Rolly Ruta

Musical Director: George Canseco

Cinematography: Felizardo Bailen

Film Editor: Ike Jarlego Sr.

Screenplay: Danny L. Zialcita, Baby Nebrida

Direction: Danny L. Zialcita

     Visually and emotionally, Ligaw na Bulaklak (Crown Seven Film Productions, 1976) survives with its power surprisingly intact. The film's master stroke is its understanding that this is Juan's story, told from his own passionate, sad, tortured perspective. As Mang Juan, Vic Silayan creates one of the great, fearless screen performances. His face registers the astonishing complexity of Juan's inner life. He is calculating, eventually soul-sick with his own love. Most important, Silayan never metaphorically winks at the audience to hint that he knows better than Juan. He seems to know exactly what Juan knows, with all the discomforting truths. It is an immensely seductive performance, but one whose seductions are never on the surface. Ishmael Bernal was expected to have made the film more titillating, instead, he has risen to the level of his material. His direction is sensitive to the screenplay's wit as well as it's lyricism. Alma Moreno is extraordinary as Evelyn. She is within sight of womanhood yet remains, definitely, a schoolgirl.

     Interiorized in both performances is foreknowledge of the characters' fate, a spying of the downward spiral. There is bitter logic in the way they interact, both with each other and with the camera. She seems constantly in motion, while he, at the center of the screen is whipped by the camera. Bernal depicts Evelyn in a frighteningly erotic way, countered by the knowing look in her eyes, she’s not as unaware of her seductiveness as we at first suspect or is she? Evelyn may be disturbingly sexy, but that is the point of Bernal’s film. Ligaw na Bulaklak coils and uncoils like a snake in the sun, sinuous, alluring. Bernal has found a core of unmelodramatic doom and by observing a certain discipline, he carries it through to a last scene in which the film's elements are fused. In the end, the film is a tragic morality tale and a poignant character study. It is unexpectedly perfect, this ending with Evelyn's blood stained cheek like an ambiguous cancer, the meadow-mongering of Bernal's seriousness is joined to his insistence on the characters' misery and at that moment, one feels loss.

Cinematography: Arnold Alvaro

Film Editor: Edgardo Vinarao

Sound Effects: Jun Martinez, Danilo Salvador

Music: Ernani Cuenco

Screenplay: Edgardo M. Reyes

Direction: Ishmael Bernal

     The emotional fervor of Joselito Altarejos' films requires levels of accommodation and relief all their own. Serious, probing and at times uncomfortably graphic, Jino to Mari (Solar Entertainment Corporation, Center Stage Productions, Co., BeyondtheBox Productions, Inc., 2018) expresses such a raw, unvarnished sexual and emotional intensity that seeing it is like a confession of faith. Every second of this movie breathes. The opening half hour feels discursive, practically shapeless. Stripped of exposition or psychological underpinning, the work has such an immediacy it seems impossible not to be drawn into its intricate, peculiar texture. Altarejos moves with authority and speed, finding a boldly expressive and fluid camera style that underlines the anxious, disruptive interaction of its two protagonists. In Ang Lihim ni Antonio (2008) and his other works, Altarejos has been drawn to themes of sexual indeterminacy and shifting ambiguities. With Jino to Mari, Altarejos and co-writer John Bedia deploy this emotionally extreme set up not necessarily as a meditation on longing and feeling, but preferring instead a moral inquiry into choice, disruption and sensibility. Altarejos discovered something profound and meaningful in the climactic sex scene. As his camera assumed the subjective point of view of lead actor Oliver Aquino, Altarejos gazed deep into the beatific visage of lead actress Angela Cortez and her breath-heavy, ecstatic reactions.

     As a physical production, Jino to Mari is striking. Cinematographer Mycko David has a precise, poetic style that the film is alive with possibility and resourcefulness. In addition to Altarejos, David has collaborated with the country’s three most important young filmmakers, Antoinette Jadaone (Never Not Love You), Mikhail Red (Birdshot) and Dan Villegas (Changing Partners). His street scenes carry such a jolt of electricity, each shot carries a charge of excitement, wonder and revelation. The use of light is also beautiful, most effectively in denoting the sense of disappointment across Gino’s face. Altarejos understands that sex is rarely just about sex, that it's a balm for loneliness, a refuge from the fear of mortality. He also has a loving eye, filming his actors with an intimacy that never exploits. He creates erotic compositions from limbs, thighs and backsides, giving the body an almost whimsical grace. Altarejos finds his most expressive and audacious formal qualities in his actors. Aquino inhabits Gino with a still ferocity that you expect him to shatter like porcelain before the drama slowly builds to its shocking conclusion. Aquino's composure is like a painting, look close enough and you'll see the cracks in the surface. Cortez's performance is magnificent. The sadness is sealed by the recognition in her eyes that her life will never be clean again, her love for her daughter will have to be enough. Jino to Mari strikes a harrowing, emotionally bruising chord on the need for self-expression. But most plaintively, it underscores how restricted and trapped these characters are.

Director: Joselito O. Altarejos

Screenplay: John Bedia, Joselito Altarejos

Director of Photography: Mycko David

Editors: Diego Marx Dobles, Joselito Altarejos

Musical Scorer: Richard Gonzales

Sound Designer: Andrew Milallos

Production Designers: Robert Habal, Alexander Alih, Jay Altarejos