SARI-SARING SINENG PINOY

     For centuries, vampires have provided handy metaphors for social and physical dilemma, but in the stylishly muted romance The Time That Remains (Netflix, Black Cap Pictures, 2025), the threat is personal. Fusing multiple genres into a thoroughly original whole, Adolfo Borinaga Alix, Jr. has crafted a beguiling and cryptic look at personal desire that creeps up on you with the nimble powers of its supernatural focus. The director combines elements of film noir and the restraint of gothic horror with the subdued depictions of Filipino culture… the comparisons go on and on, but the result is wholly original. From the first frame to its last, the movie establishes a spellbinding atmosphere with long takes, deep shadows and music cues ironically positioned against the cerebral quality of the storytelling, hinting at the vitality threatening to burst forth from its lethargic universe at any moment. The movie's constituent parts reflect a mishmash of pop cultural artifacts, both in the larger plot structures the films calls back to and the smaller elements of its design. All these elements are admirably stitched together by Alix's strict handling of tone. The Time That Remains isn't a chaotic genre mash-up that relishes every cultural reference, but a work where every individual element is sacrificed to the larger cause of creeping us right out. Alix fleshes out the somber life of mysterious vampire, Matias (Carlo Aquino). Though his origins remain obscured, as he trails locals late at night, Matias quickly turns into the face of repression burdening all of them. When he watches Lilia’s (Jasmine Curtis-Smith) behavior, it’s the first indication of a light at the end of the tunnel, a means of righting the wrongs in this broken world. But it’s not until he forms a curiously moving romance with Lilia — The Time That Remains truly moves beyond its elegant form and develops an emotional core. Hidden underneath the surface is a definite social commentary on issues like mortality and humanity’s self-destructive nature. 

     Curtis-Smith truly does a remarkable job here in the role of Lilia. Aquino is excellent as well. The two craft a charming chemistry that lends an authenticity to their relationship which really makes you feel like they have a strong level of comfort with one another. The supporting cast is uniformly fantastic too, with an especially deadpan turn from Christine Reyes and a much needed kickstart from Bembol Roco, who gives the film a bit of energy as it heads into its third act. Similarly appealing is the film’s conception of Baguio City. It mirrors the life the vampire used to have, a life of innovation and progress that becomes antiquated as the world forgets and moves on. It is desolate and seen largely at night — a moody atmosphere heightened by the movie's cinematography. Baguio is seemingly fading away into history and the few people who remain seem content retreating to their respective hiding places. There's rarely any interaction between characters that isn't somehow contractual. A scene at a tattoo parlor is one of the few featuring more than three characters as Matias goes about the routine of scoring blood from Ami (Reyes). This absence of intimacy gives the vampire's every appearance a charged energy. Filmed in the shadows, he's a menacing presence that endangers the complacent behavior we otherwise witness. Matias also initiates the only meaningful interactions that we see in the film, whether in a nascent romance or in a heartfelt chat with Lilia. The surreal nature of the city coupled with Alix's limited use of dialogue and exposition, also means The Time That Remains invites plenty of possible allegorical interpretations — not that Alix is keen on affirming any of them. In other moments, he battles our desire to over-interpret, positing the vampire and the superficial residents Matias torments, as merely ravenous, motivated not by any code but by lust and desire. Alix is known for making films of a slower, more contemplative pace and what he creates here is a sweeping and moody anti-horror movie. Alix has a talent for making it seem like the revelation of his grand vision lies just around the corner, even if it never comes. But mostly it's because, though the scenery seems familiar, the path Alix is on with The Time That Remains feels entirely his own.

Written By: Mixkaela Villalon, Jerry Gracio, Adolfo Borinaga Alix, Jr.

Director of Photography: Odyssey Flores

Production Design: Jerann Ordinario, Maria Criselda Dacanay

Film Editor: Mark Victor

Sound Design: Allen Roy Santos

Musical Score: Paul Sigua, Myka Magsaysay-Sigua

Directed By: Adolfo Borinaga Alix, Jr.

     Playing an emotionally repressed middle aged man doesn't sound like much of a stretch for Jay Ilagan, but for the first time in his career, he fully sustains and builds on that tension from scene one to the final fade-out of actor/director Pio de Castro III's feature debut, Soltero (Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, 1984). It is an outstanding performance from Ilagan, not especially because it is a departure for him, but because the part itself is such a perfect match for his habitual and superbly calibrated ­performance register: withdrawn, pained, but sensual, with sparks of wit and fun. Surrounded by people but lonely and alone, Crispin might as well be invisible; so he leaves things unsaid with family and colleagues. Soltero is slowed by its own beauty, but it is salvaged by a trio of majestic scenes. In one, Crispin in a phone call from his mother (Irma Potenciano), during which his voice must betray nothing, leaving his face (on which the director is smart enough to keep the camera to do all the work); in another, the gentle sadness of an evening with RJ, whose own loneliness of abandonment is as inconsolable as Crispin’s. Chanda Romero’s performance finds the woman’s heart, though, even as she reveals a selfishness that is as monstrous as it is oddly innocent. Innocent, too, but oddly wise, is Christina (Rio Locsin), demonstraing grace, intensity and a relentlessness that is less evocative than romance of a most sentimental type. And a hopeless romantic is what Crispin with the object of his romance taken from him and a world at large that refuses to recognize its legitimacy or his loss. De Castro focuses on details, he's visualized Bienvenido M. Noeirga's screenplay with every shot precisely framed — the overall effect is the disjointedly peculiar focus of a psyche that is overwrought and acutely, painfully aware of everything around its profound isolation. If the obvious symbolism of Crispin crying inside his white Volkswagen Beetle is a hackneyed device unworthy of the rest of the film, De Castro overcomes it with a stream-of-consciousness style that is both stylish and heartfelt. As the smog in Manila causes such beautiful sunsets, sometimes awful things have their own kind of beauty. De Castro has found the beauty in despair without cheapening either. Soltero is centrally about someone who's finally learning to live in the moment — a moment that has been made, on screen, at once wrenching and ravishing.