In the wrong hands, Palipat-Lipat Papalit Palit (Viva Films, 2024), Roman S. Perez Jr.'s story of obsession and jealousy could have easily been turned into a tawdry film. Perez avoids this thanks to his use of highly stylized framing. Love scenes are rendered in fragments with each frame carefully composed. Palipat-Lipat Papalit-Palit is steeped in intense, complex interpersonal relationships. It's packed running time offers a catalogue of infatuation, adultery and death, all packaged in imagery so exquisitely staid that the film continually resists classification as mere sensationalist sexploitation – or any classification at all. Here, the film’s seductive surface hides turbulent depths, while at the helm is a woman of questionable reliability. Palipat-Lipat Papalit-Palit is an aesthete’s wet dream – but at the same time there is a tangible tension between its sedate form and its more shocking content, perfectly embodied by Denise Esteban's performance as Edna, whose modesty and grace seem constantly on the point of erupting into a frenzied hysteria. Victor Relosa is a very interesting, vivid actor. Here, he's suitably intense as Larry, but to such little effect. The film plays like a shrill melodrama, but it's also a mystery, with the relationship between Larry, Edna's husband and Amy (Aiko Garcia) depicting the wellspring of desire and destruction.
The first half of the film gradually builds the relationship between Larry and Amy. But we soon learn that she may not be quite as innocent as we thought. Larry's obsession with Amy leads him to defy Edna. And when she learns of – and confronts Larry about his affair, he’s unrepentant. But things are complicated even more when Amy falls under Larry’s thrall. They carry on a passionate affair, much to Edna's dismay. There’s a growing abandonment of common sense among the lovers and the instinct for self-preservation becomes consumed by their desires leading to a grim conclusion. The whole point of the exercise is to show how powerful these desires are and that the characters have become enslaved by their unchecked appetites. There’s a thought-provoking secret that transfixes the obsessions of the characters in a way it has seldom been done before on film. Palipat-Lipat Papalit Palit is the kind of movie in which ordinary rational thought processes are cast aside and passions are allowed to reign supreme. It speaks of a love story compromised by deceits, doubts and jealousies. It's judiciously erotic and an unexpectedly potent slice of Filipino cinema.
Sound Design: Lamberto Casas Jr., Alex Tomboc
Music: Dek Margaja
Editor: Aaron Alegre
Production Designer: Junebert Cantila
Director of Photography: Rommel Andreo C. Sales
Screenplay: Ronald Batallones
Directed by: Roman Perez Jr.
