SARI-SARING SINENG PINOY

     What makes writer/director Zig Dulay's Huling Halik (Lexuality Entertainment, 2011) work so well is 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

     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

     Lanaya is consistently less interested in action than consequence and less interested in scene than scenery. The deliberate restraining of action until the final act may put some off. Yet these are small chips in an otherwise tightly woven tapestry of craftsmanship and thematic richness. It’s an alternate narrative track that suddenly frames Kaloy’s story as something larger, more willing to puncture the spells of anxiety that it’s cast. Even when a major plot thread is abruptly resolved, the move pays off in a coda so sly that you almost don’t hear the sound of hearts cracking. What initially seems like a series of cryptic aside soon turns into a bigger-picture revelation about what writer-director Clyde Capistrano has been chasing all along: the passage of time and how it never really heals all wounds. But it is a point that bears repeating, especially when echoed in a movie as graceful and gratifying as this one. Wrangling together this many moving parts is no easy task. Yet watching Capistrano succeed is nothing short of fascinating. He works with an unhurried assurance, following his own set of rules at every narrative turn. At no point does he or his movie seem bound by formula or expectation. It brings a certain freedom to his filmmaking and storytelling. Thrillers often spend their whole runtime building tension for a dramatic payoff. The power of resistance is not always measured in success, but through the human heart’s refusal to bow down to tyranny. With Lanaya, Capistrano exhumes the past as the basis for a purely fictional story and in doing so articulates how fiction can be even more valuable as a vehicle for truth than it is as a tool for covering up. What ultimately elevates Lanaya is its refusal to simplify. It’s expansive, sometimes unwieldy and deliberately dense, but always purposeful. Capistrano understands that authoritarianism thrives in complexity, confusion and fear and his film mirrors that reality with confidence and clarity. 

Written and Directed By: Clyde Capsitrano

Director of Photography: Nap Jamir II

Production Designer: Melvin Lacerna

Music Composer: Kara Gravides

Editor: Jordan Arabejo

     Who would have thought of Robb Guinto for the role of Brenda? I was intrigued with the casting choice. And let me tell you, what many, including myself, thought might have been a flash-in-the-pan dramatic turn in Memories of a Love Story (2022), is proven to be anything, but having seen her performance in Desperada (LDG Production, 2026), Guinto is developing some strong dramatic acting chops and more than proves herself here. As Brenda, her greatest strength and where she excels is with creating and delivering palpable anger and rage. You feel her pain. She makes Brenda’s frustration very real. You empathize. But what I truly appreciate with her performance is that Guinto never boxes herself in so as to make you pity Brenda. Somewhere inside her, all along, there is the hope of a different life, almost overshadowed by the fear that she does not deserve it. Guinto shows us Brenda’s ferocity, her vulnerability, all the ways she has been beaten down and all of the strength she has to keep coming back. The result is a story that is touching and inspiring, that really struck me while watching. When it comes to joy and happiness and any sense of ease within the character, there is always a sense of uncomfortableness that bodes well, but on the whole, a solid grounded powerful performance rooted in courage and conviction. Watching the relationship between Brenda and Mama Miriam played with careful balance of trepidation and strength by Sue Prado, shows a wonderful chemistry and watching that develop is something that I would have liked to see more. Prado has this uncanny ability to retain her uncertainty while trying to balance it with the responsibilities of adulthood within a character. While Mama Miriam is in a relationship with Sister Carol (Mercedes Cabral), around Brenda, Prado gives Miriam this new mother nervousness that makes your heart stop. 

     As Lucio, Yasser Marta is one tweaked out mess. You have no sympathy or empathy for the character and at times, it feels as if Marta takes Lucio so far out into left field that it feels disingenuous. However, to his credit, he immersed himself not only in his own physical transformation but emotional transformation as well. The result is startling to the point of unrecognizabilty. It’s been all self-denial, lack of responsibility, no self-reflection and to do so would probably break him so he just refuses. Hesus, willing to make sacrifices for Brenda is played by Mhack Morales with enormous compassion and strength. Desperada moves at a healthy pace, involving the viewer with a growing case history that gains compassion as it gathers focus. Dennis C. Evangelista scripted a compelling emotional story and director Luisito Lagdameo Ignacio immediately fills in the few options a runaway like Brenda has. Ignacio, particularly in the film’s second act pulls off something rather remarkable in terms of point-of-view; he shows women critical of the shelter that has saved them, almost as if Brenda develops a kind of skepticism. Credit is due to Prado as a woman who has opened her house and turns it into a shelter. Careful with regards to storytelling, the subtle elements work and the film does not feel as if it’s a kind of poverty porn, but unfortunately it lets Lucio off the hook too easily. Critical of the system, Ignacio tells this story interestingly, but it is the galvanizing force of Robb Guinto who catapults Desperada above the heartbreaking level of soap opera with a lancing effect. Even on the verge of mental collapse, she picks up the pieces and moves on gallantly, her face a three-act play of mortal tenderness.

Story & Screenplay: Dennis C. Evangelista

Director of Photography: TM Malones

Editing & Sound: Gilbert Obispo

Music: Mikoy Morales

Production Design: Cyrus Khan

Directed By: Luisito Lagdameo Ignacio

     This insight deepens a scene in which Adrian seduces Rosalie with shallow romantic gestures, but it’s a stance that also positions the film perhaps too explicitly as a rumination on the female gaze and its controlling male equivalent—this obviousness spills over to other scenes as well, mostly the sophomoric and condescending pseudo-psychological insight offered by scenes that have Adrian coping with his seemingly uncontrollable and unexplainable rage. The movie doesn’t go in for elaborate set-pieces of beatings and bloodshed. He is violent toward her, yes, but what’s terrifying is not the brutality of his behavior but how it is sudden, uncontrollable, and overwhelming. The cast is utterly compelling. Serna is powerful as Rosalie, a woman who slowly, through hard lessons, is learning that she must leave this man and never see him again and not miss him or weaken to his appeals or cave in to her own ambiguity about his behavior. She may think (and some viewers might think) that she is simply a victim, but when she returns to him, she gives away that game. She knows it’s insane, and does it, anyway.  As Adrian, De Leon makes his anger absolutely convincing and that is necessary or this is merely a story. At once vulnerable, confused and yet still very scary, even when he's being nice, he brings home the anguish of a man married—perhaps irretrievably—to violence, but who is trying to escape from the cycle. The difference is that Serna's Rosalie is less confident and more implicated. That creates a complex response. We sympathize at times with both characters, but curiously enough, we are more willing to understand why Adrian explodes than why Rosalie returns to him. Surely she knows she’s making a mistake, yes she does. They both know they're spiraling toward danger. If only knowledge had more to do with how they feel and why they act. These subtle performances add a layer of subtext to the characters that gives the film a passionate cultural sensibility while also keeping it universal and identifiable. All this talk of violence may give the impression that Kapag Napagod ang Puso is downbeat when, in fact, it is not. There is much to be said for the bravery of the characters that is cathartic and yet laced with hidden truths.

Production Design: Lea Locsin

Screenplay: Jake Tordesillas

Music: Mon del Rosario

Cinematography: Ely Cruz

Editor: Edgardo (Boy) Vinarao

Direction: Maryo J. de los Reyes

     Mendoza knows how to use visual and dramatic means to make a milieu palpable to an audience by providing an introduction to the complex blend of emotion that permeates the film. His incredible artistry and narrative complexities are often overlooked for the visceral quality of his cinema. His particular tone balances the onscreen expressiveness with the heightened emotional states of his characters. The conversations between Shaleha and Banagas-An are some of the best parts of the film-their talk is at once poignant, punctuated by long silences. Much of the film’s emotional impact manages to feel entirely earned. The scenes showing Shaleha's ice-cold indifference to Bangas-An is well achieved, creating a strong and disturbing degree of sympathy for the treatment of women by society. The hushed score during moments of true emotion never manages to eclipse the very real human stories that it accompanies, nor are the experiences ever trivialized. Interestingly, the film’s final scenes are set against the backdrop of Bangas-An's marriage to Mersila (Lovi Poe). In trying to understand Shaleha, who lives with willing resignation to her fate, she sets her husband free. Whether that’s a failure of imagination on Shaleha's part or a success depends on your point of view. And while a single viewing of Thy Womb may not be enough to appreciate the intricacy of these characters or the journey they take, revisiting the detailed and mesmerizing world of the film would be a rare kind of pleasure. 

Director: Brillante Ma Mendoza

Screenplay: Henry Burgos

Director of Photography: Odyssey Flores

Music: Teresa Barrozo

Editor: Kats Seraon

Production Design: Dante Mendoza

Sound Design: Albert Michael Idioma, Addiss Tabong

     We may even find ourselves quietly admiring Clarissa or at least retaining some awe of her, as she rejects and overturns the social expectations that have stifled and nearly crushed her. The first clue to Kaya Kong Abutin ang Langit’s subversive, sympathetic view of Clarissa lies in its narrative frame. The movie unfolds in flashback, as Nancy (Gina Alajar) narrates her sister’s tragic tale. She is the only one who knows the whole story and any insight into Clarissa will have to be gained through the story’s seams. But Clarissa doesn't follow rules. Her adoptive parents, Monina and Ralph Gardamonte's (Liza Lorena and Robert Campos) accident is, by all standards, an unforgivable act, but one that is so badly monstrous that it inspires a kind of horrified wonder as Clarissa lingers like an awful dream for the rest of Kaya Kong Abutin ang Langit. In a bit of narrative cunning, however, we now share a secret with Clarissa and therefore experience the same smack of irony that she does upon realizing that even homicide has not solved her problem. Even if we conceive of Clarissa as the villain, her open declarations of discomfort and entrapment feel wildly subversive. She tells Nancy that she hates being poor, a shocking declaration that underlines her narcissism. At the same time, however, the declaration—offered as the camera emphasizes Soriano’s costumed bulk and her character’s unhappiness—also serves as a sly acknowledgment of something she may have felt at one moment or another. Clarissa says the things women think but cannot say. Her unspeakable acts may have offered a cathartic relief from gender imperatives and an exorcism of their own forbidden feelings and longings. We feel her in the cruel irony of the closing moments. Such happiness is forbidden to Clarissa, who wanted too much, her arms stretched, up into the heavens.

Sound: Vic Macamay, STAMP

Production Design: Butch Garcia, PDGP

Director of Photography: Joe Batac Jr., FSC

Film Editor: Edgardo "Boy" Vinarao, FEGMP

Music: Willy Cruz, UFIMDAP

Screenplay: Jake Tordesillas, SGP

Directed By: Maryo J. de los Reyes

     Borlaza treats Martin very gingerly. There are times he seems to be protecting her by cutting away to other actors, when one would expect the camera to stay on her. Gil does as well as can be younger expected with the role of the rapist. The revelation of Laruan is Angela Perez who plays Flor, Martin's younger sister in the film. She has some difficult scenes and handles them like a veteran, she’s unaffected and convincing on camera and whether she knows it or not, she can act. Perez is interesting to watch. Poised to thoughtfully address the dual victimization women face in cases of sexual assault—the crime itself and later, the victim blaming —Laruan hoped to provoke the kind of cultural controversy and heated social conversations, but the only dialogue prompted was widespread criticism of what many saw as a tasteless attempt to exploit a serious issue by using social relevance as a smokescreen for a routine rape-and-revenge flick. By the time the melodrama has come to its conclusion, not even Joy herself is confident that her image as a sexual object doesn’t trump her emotional wreckage. In fact, Borlaza only seems to drive that point home by concentrating less on Joy’s inner torment and more on oblique angles of the mise-en-scène that mirrors the ’80s Philippine pageant world. But a last-act twist changes the whole tone of the movie, turning the enterprise into a popular (at the time) revenge flick at the cost of coherency. It's then that Laruan implodes. By the time Borlaza fastidiously ties up the loose threads other films in that vague decade would’ve left dangling. It’s clear that he doesn’t want the audience to dwell much on the specifics of the plot but, rather, translate the fundamental critiques of judgmental dependence on image tropes into their own experiences. That Borlaza hides this bitter message in camp—a genre that depends on its viewer acting on their image-reading, cynical impulses—is ballsy genius. 

Sound Engineer: Vic Macamay

Production Designer: Ben Payumo

Cinematography By: Rosendo (Baby) Buenaseda

Film Editor: Ike Jarlego, Jr.

Music By: George Canseco

Screenplay: Jose Javier Reyes

Directed By: Emmanuel H. Borlaza