Filmmaker Roman Perez Jr. is a genuine obsessive who directs like an avant-garde butcher. His films play off a central juxtaposition: At the same time his characters are behaving like pigs, his style is one of luxuriously controlled aestheticism. On one level you can describe the movie simply in terms of the characters and the lustful and unspeakable things they do to one another. On another level, there is no end to the ideas stirred up by this movie. Between, there lies a simple tale of adultery, jealousy and revenge. The artifice is a great part of the work's effectiveness. Perez's stroke of genius is to create a self-consciously false world peopled with character types who slowly become real enough to evoke pain and sadness. The dark comic moments in Litsoneras (Viva Films, 2023) are rare, but they do sneak in at unexpected times. Things take a turn for the worse when Minerva (Jamilla Obispo), with uncoy vigor, takes a lover right under her husband Eloy's (Joko DIaz) nose. Jonas (Victor Relosa) exhanges glances with Minerva and soon, her daughter Elria (Yen Durano) catches them making love. Their unabashedly revealed sexual adventure continues. Elria gains her revenge by having sex with Jonas. Eloy gets wind of the affair and the battle lines are drawn. If Litsoneras were any less explicit, that moral battle would certainly have been diminished.
Obispo has never been sexier than here. Her lovemaking scenes with Relosa are charged with eroticism and her confrontation with Diaz is tense and bitter. Obispo seizes the role with frightening determination. Perez's vision is by default one of the most distinguished in contemporary Filipino film. This is simply because he abandons filmic convention. Actions are not expectedly enhanced by close-ups and the detached feel adds to the film’s voyeuristic nature, as some level of focus is placed on the periphery. There’s no denying, Litsoneras has a style all its own — an extravagantly repellent atmosphere of suppressed violence. The section of the movie in which Eloy discovers his wife’s infidelity is undeniably suspenseful. You keep waiting with dread to see what horrible, graphic form of retribution he’ll come up with. When the retribution arrives, it’s shocking, all right. Litsoneras is not an easy film to sit through. It doesn't simply make a show of being uncompromising -- it is uncompromised in every single shot from beginning to end. Why is it so extreme? Because it is a film made in rage and rage cannot be modulated. Those who think it is only about lust will have to think again. It is a film that uses the most basic strengths and weaknesses of the human body as a way of giving physical form to the corruption of the human soul.
Sound Engineer: Aian Louie Caro
Musical Scorer: Francis de Veyra
Editor: Aaron Angelo Alegre, Aymer Alquinto
Director of Photography: Dino Placino
Screenplay: Ruel Montañez
Directed By: Roman Perez Jr.
