Adolfo Borinaga Alix, Jr's Pila (Global Japan Entertainment, Feminine Annex, Noble Wolf, Astral 88, 2026) centers on a relationship between poor, struggling adults, showing how human connection helps them survive in awful economic conditions More broadly, it forges a connection between its audience and a social class from which most of them will be very far removed. It’s a film about the unsustainable condition of being poor and alive, which admittedly sounds like a grueling experience. But Pila seeks understanding—it seeks to connect—and understanding is innately hopeful. From the very first, Regina (Gina Pareño), is in a perfect storm of bureaucratic misery. What follows is her experience being part of that system where a person is just a number and where there is little place for basic human understanding and compassion. All this may sound mundane and even dull, but the film is anything but that. Under Alix’s nuanced direction, we follow Regina as she makes friends and does everything in her power to make her own life bearable. Pareño plays Regina without pathos, yet she extracts tears from us with the brave face her character puts on, masking the frustration of her situation. Pareño's witty habitation of Regina builds to emotional crescendos that shake with great dramatic force. What really holds our attention, however, is the camerawork, a single unbroken take of some 101 minutes, which is quite an achievement. Sure, similar feats have been done before, but here it grabs us early on and pulls us into the story, much as Regina herself is pulled into the unfolding drama.
Pila fashions itself as a social drama about the poor, but it also has plenty to say about the indignities of aging and where the two intersect: turns out being elderly and poor are a deadly combination. Regina discovers she has missed the digital revolution. When you’re poor, problems have a way of compounding. It’s as frustrating as it is relatable. And probably necessary. The true power of this gentle, realistic film that displays the kindness of others and human hope, lies in showing ordinary people struggling on a daily basis against the system, that is paradoxically designed to keep them in the same miserable place. The scenes are mounted in such a compelling way that speaks volumes. Indeed, and throughout his solid career, Alix never needed special effects or modern techniques to create a powerful film. He just focuses on simple characters, which we can easily identify ourselves with and exposes their plausible problems with heart and emotion. Despite the film’s deliberate pace and quiet tone, Alix isn’t interested in letting anybody off the hook with a happy ending. Escapist cinema, it is not. But with Pila, he is using the medium for one of its most crucial purposes: to shine a light on injustices he sees around him, as well as on our capacity for human decency. The greatest virtue of Pila is its patience in confronting painstakingly the incremental humiliations visited on the neediest in society. Alix's film is about empathy, a portrait of ordinary people, blunt, bracing yet loving and far, far from mere polemic.
Screenplay: Ralston Jover
Director of Photography: Nelson Macabatbat, Jr., LFS
Production Designer: Adolfo Alix, Jr.
Music: Mikoy Morales
Sound Design: Immanuel Varona
Directed By: Adolfo Borinaga Alix, Jr.
