SARI-SARING SINENG PINOY

     For all the romances the movies have given us, there are precious few that show two people gradually falling in love. Contemporary romantic comedies generally engineer a movie-long feud that builds to a climactic smooch, weepies go for insta-passion shorthand, the better to clear the way for whatever ludicrous tragedy its lovers have in store. And that makes sense as the realistic alternative with ardent feelings accumulating bit by bit over time, in a context devoid of manufactured conflict seems like it would be too politely dull to endure. All the same, that perfectly describes Olivia M. Lamasan's Minsan, Minahal Kita (Star Cinema, 2000). It's a beautiful star-crossed romance distinguished by an understated tone and perfectly modulated performances. Intelligent and refreshingly adult, the movie weaves a hypnotic spell as it tells the tale of two married people who develop a casual rapport and soon find themselves swept up in an unexpected and unwanted affair. Rarely has a film explored the spiritual side of love with such tenderness and perception and so successfully exuded the debilitating ache of unfulfilled longing.

     Most importantly, it's the performances which make Minsan, Minahal Kita such an unforgettable film. Sharon Cuneta is extraordinary, conveying with great subtlety and pathos, the torment of a love affair that takes possession of her character. The sense of aching loss she shows towards the end of the film is so real, it is almost unbearable to watch, a naked spectacle of desolation and anguish. Richard Gomez complements her well, displaying a mix of quiet strength and delicate warmth that's utterly believable. Minsan, Minahal Kita fully registers the surging of emotion. It is because the social pressures and the genuine appeal of conformity are both so meticulously realized, that the desire to love against the grain comes across so powerfully. Far from lacking emotion, the film is throbbing with it, but also registering that emotion cannot be pinned down, summed up, that emotion is overwhelming. That is why Minsan, Minahal Kita is not only a lovely film, but a vibrantly good film.

     The restoration work has produced very impressive results and the film looks spectacular in high-definition. Not only is depth and color stability substantially improved, but there are entire sections of the film where various small details have been revealed. Dirt and debris have been meticulously removed, leaving a clean image that allows us to fully invest ourselves in this heartbreaking tale. The audio treatment is very impressive. Clearly, during the restoration, various audio stabilizations have been performed while hiss, hum, clicks and pops have been removed as best as possible. As a result, the dialog is stable, crisp and easy to follow. This is another stellar effort that beautifully salutes this tender, uncertain romance.

Directed By: Olivia M. Lamasan

Screenplay: Ricky Lee, Olivia M. Lamasan

Director of Photography: Shayne Sarte-Clemente, FSC

Film Editor: George Jarlego

Production Design: Manny B. Morfe, PDGP

Musical Director: Archie Castillo

Sound Supervision: Ramon Reyes, STAMP

     Once Sara (Vilma Santos) and Eric (Ronaldo Valdez) meet, Karma (Sining Silangan, 1981) stumbles. Danny L. Zialcita and the cast never communicate what is so special about Sara and Eric’s love. On what level are the two connecting? All we know is that they are both attractive, involved with other people and like Elvis Presley's '60s version of It's Now or Never. We are essentially asked to accept their great love as a given simply because they are the leads in a romantic movie. When the two finally get to spend a day together, the film resorts to that most tired of romance movie clichés, the montage of the couple together outdoors. Zialcita shoots it all in soft focus, looking pleasant and romantic, but it feels like a lazy cheat, like Zialcita dodging having to write and show scenes of genuine bonding. As Eric, Valdez is sincere and that’s about it. There isn’t much for him to work with. Santos makes a better impression, she’s so beautiful and charming that it’s easy to imagine Eric wanting to be with her. She has some good moments in the early stages of the romance, displaying initial trepidation and caution which later gives way to an engaging sense of playfulness. Santos gets one of the film’s most memorable scenes, when Sara finally expresses her love for Eric. It’s one of the rare times a character speaks deeply from the heart. It successfully conveys the genuinely romantic tone most of the movie tries but fails to achieve and is a hint of what the film might have been. Chanda Romero works to bring shading to her role as Cristy, Eric's jealous wife but it’s all too obvious that she’s just there to be an obstacle for the lovers, a plot device in a natty suit and nothing more. Tommy Abuel has a more memorable turn as Sara's unforgiving husband Alfredo.

     Even with the film’s obvious shortcomings, it’s not hard to understand Karma’s appeal. What romantic wouldn’t be drawn to a tale of a pure love that transcends time, of lovers overcoming overwhelming obstacles to be together? It’s an attractive fantasy and the film serves it up with likable stars, lovely settings and music that could tug at the heartstrings of the coldest cynic. The film is unapologetically old-fashioned, a rarity at the time it was released and even more unusual now. These things make Karma special and worth celebrating and its flaws easy to overlook. L’Immagine Ritrovata’s extensive restoration is a dramatic improvement over the Viva Video DVD. The disc featured a noisy, grainy, pan and scan transfer that did the film no favors. This HD digital release finally gives the movie a worthwhile home video presentation with a beautiful, crisp and colorful transfer that is significantly less grainy while retaining a natural-looking film texture. Certain scenes appear soft, but this accurately reflects Zialcita and cinematographer Felizardo Bailen’s selective use of diffusion filters and is not a flaw of the transfer. The 2.0 audio won’t blow away anyone’s speakers, but the track is clear with good range and Gilbert Gregorio’s score comes across well in the mix. Although the film itself may be flawed, this is a superior high definition release that is highly recommended for incurable romantics.

Film Editor: Enrique Jarlego Sr.

Cinematographer: Felizardo Bailen

Music By: Gilbert Gregorio

Screenplay By: Danny L. Zialcita

Direction: Danny L. Zialcita

     Initially, the circumstances in Kasalanan Bang Sambahin Ka? (Viva Films, 1990) are innocent enough. Alex (Julio Diaz), a soon to be married executive goes on a date with Catherine (Vivian Velez), a stock broker. They're obviously attracted to each other, but when they move beyond the flirting stage to Catherine's apartment, where they make love on the stairs, the sex is explosively erotic, but at the same time, funny. Chito Roño knows how to give audiences their vicarious kicks. He excites them, then gives a little release by making them laugh. Alex and Catherine spend one night and part of the next day together in the way that one seldom does except in the first flush of a new love affair. Very quickly they establish an easy intimacy and in her head, Catherine is already making plans for the future. After one night, she falls in love, he doesn't. The movie, written by Jose Javier Reyes has a rock-solid premise although it's an odd one for a thriller, it works beautifully. Kasalanan Bang Sambahin Ka? has an inescapable pull to it, it's suffocatingly exciting. Roño's direction has seductive sharpness and precision. On the surface, the story is a female revenge fantasy, it's the expression of every woman's anger on the morning after a one-night stand when the lovemaking is over and the man has left and that empty, used-up feeling starts to creep in. But the movie takes the man's point of view, not the woman's, it's about the male fear of female emotions, their dread that casual pleasure-taking will turn into messy entanglements.

     All this, which adds up to make the point that there is no such thing as safe sex is banked into the subtext and because it builds on existing sexual fears, the movie may come across as being more serious than it is. Kasalanan Bang Sambahin Ka? is deep but only superficially. Roño is interested in ideas only to the extent that they buttress the thriller aspect of his story. But he's savvy in his titillating, manipulative way about sexual attitudes. He knows for example, that Alex's troubles with Catherine tighten his bond to his fiancée Grace (Dawn Zulueta). What this enables Roño to do is create a sense that something is at stake. Roño is particularly good at conveying the affection between Alex and Grace. But as Grace, Zulueta makes the job easy for him. She's spectacular here. The sexiest moment in the movie, in fact, isn't the one in which Velez and Diaz first make love, but the one in which Alex looks at Grace from across the table. Grace is presented as a model, modern woman, good-spirited, self-deprecating, efficient but she doesn't come across as a drudge. She's happy in her life, fulfilled. In other words, she's everything Catherine would like to be but isn't. Catherine has a career and just about nothing else. Clearly, the filmmakers would like us to see her as the down side of the women's movement, the woman who bought all the rhetoric and missed out on her chance for happiness. Whatever the history though, her fling with Alex pushes her over the edge.

     The part of Catherine is essentially that of a hysteric and it's not a flattering one, but Velez doesn't recoil from this woman or try to soften her. Velez plunges deep into this woman's derangement and her level of involvement gives it a greater validity, you can't just cross her off as a crazy. This is by far the most exposed Velez has allowed herself to be in her movie roles, she's never had this kind of forcefulness. The pain and anger in her portrayal are frighteningly potent perhaps because they're just an extension of the normal gut-wrenching awfulness everybody experiences when love affairs go sour. The rage she expresses is mythically feminine. Still, she's a profoundly unsympathetic figure. Strangely enough, the film's sympathy goes to Alex, even though he's the one who must suffer for his indiscretion. Alex isn't an exciting man, he's settled and a little complacent. That puts him right within Julio Diaz's range. He is skillful without really engaging you. I think he's wrong for swashbuckling parts, he's too average but he can convey goodness and he's sexy in a kind of nonthreatening way, he's decent. There are things wrong with Kaslanan Bang Sambahin Ka? Once the central situation is laid out, it evolves pretty much the way you thought it might. Also, presenting Diaz as such a nice guy robs the character of some of his vitality, a little darkness in his soul might have added another dimension. Roño screws things down pretty tight, though. This is a spectacularly well-made thriller. It's being as effective as it is may not, in the long run, be such a plus. It is an odd thing, really, the movie is sexy and at the same time a warning about the costs of sex. It contributes to the atmosphere of sexual paranoia. And is that something we really need?

Production Designer: Charlie Arceo

Cinematographer: Jun Pereira

Sound Supervision: Albert Rima

Film Editor: Joe Solo

Musical Director: Willy Cruz

Screenplay: Jose Javier Reyes

Additional Screenplay: Racquel Villavicencio

Directed By: Chito Roño 

     Although it is not pure exploitation, Paano ang Aking Gabi? (Seiko Films, Inc., 1986) comes close to being about nothing but sex. In effect, the entertainment value of this film comes completely from its sex sequences. The good thing about Paano ang Aking Gabi? is that there are only four major characters, Carina (Lala Montelibano) the mistress, her sugar daddy Florencio (Ronaldo Valdez), Soledad (Merle Fernandez), a spinster and kept man Rafael (Greggy Liwag). Everyone in the film is depersonalized. Carina thinks of her body as merchandise. Rafael enjoys sex with Soledad but has no feelings at all towards her, she is, in the language of feminists, a sex object. The focus of the plot is Carina’s problem, perhaps with a little of Rafael’s, but there is no need in terms of plot to dwell on Soledad’s problems. In terms of theme of course, Soledad is as much a major character as everyone else. As a director, Efren C. Piñon, clearly failed to motivate his actors properly since in other films, Ronaldo Valdez played similar characters competently. Greggy Liwag seems undecided about playing his part as a brooding young man or a dashing gigolo. Lala Montelibano’s portrayal does a disservice to her reputation as an actress of some talent and to the young girl’s characterization which may account for her conscious effort to be dramatic. A misconception that Piñon did not choose or know how to correct. All of her external manifestations only succeed to create an intolerable and unsympathetic character. 

     Of course she did not get much help from the screenplay, but has she striven for some interiority in characterization, the role of Carina might conceivably come off more credibly. The writers’ inability to come up with a more inventive plot development works against Montelibano’s character portrayal. In this case, the blame is split fifty-fifty. Similarly, Merle Fernandez is embarrassing. Soledad is supposed to be a woman who just started to live her life, torn by the realization that she is losing her lover to a much younger woman. That is a mouthful, even for an experienced actress. Fernandez, sad to say, just cannot cope. It is the direction, actually, rather than the writing, that is the root of the problem here. Longer and subtler sequences could have brought out the complex emotional problems encountered by the characters, especially Fernandez’s. But a film’s substance is judged by the coherence and integrity of its screenplay, the intelligence of the acting and the perception and control exercised by the direction. Paano ang Aking Gabi? exhibits marked flaws on the first two points and as for Piñon’s direction, it is mostly and merely functional.

Production Designer: Ben Payumo

Sound Engineer: Gaudencio Barredo

Director of Photography: Clodualdo Austria

Film Editor: Edgardo Vinarao

Music By: Snaffu Rigor

Screenplay: Joe Carreon, George Vail Kabistante

Directed By: Efren C. Piñon

     In the first episode of Beerhouse (Regal Films, Inc., 1977), director Elwood Perez takes us inside a bustling tenement and lets us watch Carol (Vivian Velez) and Lilian (Trixia Gomez). What we see is funny, insightful, banal, sad, tedious, informational, infuriating, everything but erotic. There is businesslike sex, upstairs in the bedroom between Carol and her clients and one after another sexual situation, but it would be difficult to find anything remotely sexy in those exchanges. That's exactly Perez's point and the grinding out of loveless love would be even more depressing if its purveyors weren't as lively as sharply funny and as interesting as they all are. Carol's place is also airlessly claustrophobic, a quality that grows on us as pervasively as it does on Lilian, it's only one of Perez's devices to give us a feeling of what her work is really like. Perez spins out the details of these women's lives cannily, but his real forte is his work with his actors. With Trixia Gomez's increasingly put-upon Lilian as the central force of his film and Vivian Velez's feisty and utterly irreverent Carol as its great set-piece, Perez has two performances that are unmatched in their simplicity, straightforwardness and strength. And the men? They're good and a few of them very good. Jordan Crisostomo is touching as the girl-shy Nonoy, so smitten by Carol he brings her the shirt off his back. Ernie Garcia appears as Nanding, the man who breaks Lilian's heart.

     The next segment has Jenny (Chanda Romero) and Tito (Freddie Quizon) making the transitional leap from their own paths in life, trying not to focus too much on the pressure that comes with it. Hanging precariously over them, however, is the weight of an unplanned pregnancy and a family that threaten to shatter their feelings for each other. While the narrative itself couldn’t be more timely, it’s the way in which the carousel of relationships that exist around the lives of Tito and Jenny connect as a whole that lends an air of noble honesty to the episode. It’s a rare treat to watch characters so nakedly unvarnished interact and play out a story that is identifiable and genuine while dealing with the emotional impact of such weighty issues as abortion and depression. At the heart of the movie are Tito and Jenny and the film simply wouldn’t work without the natural chemistry between them. There’s a tender naiveté to the way their feelings develop, an innocence and charm about how they view life and the potential it holds. This is an affectionate low-key drama that touches all the right notes without ever resorting to over sentimentality. Don’t be put off by the mournful subject matter as the story that it’s built around is an altogether more sensitive affair.

     From the final segment’s opening scene, Perez pulls us into the seedy and repugnant life of Rosario (Charito Solis), completely devoid of morals, chastity and self-respect. Despite the subject matter, Perez's sophisticated hand gives us the ability to see Rosario with a motherly concern rather than immaterial disgust. We see the world through her eyes as Perez holds the camera on her face, allowing us to completely take in her thoughts and emotions. What will become of Rosario who has seen and done such things? Jomari (Eddie Gutierrez) slowly becomes the hero we hope can eventually end the madness. Jomari convinces us that he can save Rosario from despair. Solis, as Rosario is seamless and flawless. She gives a very textured performance of a mother torn between the love for her daughter, the struggle to succeed and the need for caring and support. Her role consists of several multi-faceted characteristics, mother, hooker and businesswoman, yet she convinces us in each one. The task asked of Cherie Gil is a mighty one, Corazon is tragically suspended somewhere between pre-pubescence and adulthood yet Perez capitalizes on Gil's screen presence and beautifully innocent charm. I was constantly expecting a tragic event to go down until I finally realized that the tragedy was the situation itself. Perez carefully served up the tale of a mother in a lifestyle we don't want to know exists. They feed us with just enough information to finish out Rosario's life according to our own hopes, desires and emotions.