SARI-SARING SINENG PINOY

     McArthur C. Alejandre's Call Me Alma (Viva Films, 2023) has the energy and almost surreptitious illumination of the best improvised work. Daniel “Toto” Uy’s cinematography gives the film an exacting look that cuts nicely against the gathering force of Ricky Lee's screenplay. With a combination of power and grace, Jaclyn Jose delivers one of the more memorable performances of her career as Sheila. This is no small feat, given the depth and breadth of Jose’s filmography and her consistent ability to produce great work. She’s such an instinctive actress that never hits a false note. Jose finds unexpected avenues into her character, a challenging role that requires her to show a mental deterioration that’s inherently internal. When the reality of her situation begins to set in, Sheila’s fear and anxiety turn, at times to hysteria. In other hands these moments could veer into melodrama, but Jose earns the viewer’s empathy. Her glossy circumstances disappear into the background, and all we see is an ailing woman, overwhelmed by her fate. While Alma (Azi Acosta) speaks, Sheila’s face reflects a complex interplay of emotions. The idea of recriminatory conflict between mother and daughter seems fair enough as Jose and Acosta invest their roles with undeniable emotional conviction and impact. 

     Shaking off the solemnity that smothers many well-meaning, high-minded family film, Sarah... Ang Munting Prinsesa (Star Cinema, 1995) revels in an exuberant sense of play, drawing its viewers into the wittily heightened reality of a fairy tale. The material, like the title, is a tad precious, but the finished film is much too spirited for that to matter. Sarah... Ang Munting Prinsesa also arrives without the benefit of big names making it even more of an unself-conscious delight. As directed by Romy V. Suzara, the film takes enough liberties to re-invent rather than embalm Frances Hodgson Burnett's assiduously beloved story. There's a hint of magical realism to the spring and fluidity of Suzara's storytelling and it breathes unexpected new life into this fable. The tale unfolds in a fanciful, expressive and handsome set that's almost entirely green. This building is the girls' school to which Sarah Crewe (Camille Prats) is relegated after an exotic childhood spent in India. And it has been ingeniously rendered to inspire all the awe and terror a child in such altered circumstances might feel. In this film's harmonious world, anything can conspire to intensify the characters' thoughts. Suzara makes that clear from the opening sequence that sets the prevailing tone of inviting artificiality. Left in England to be educated while her father, Capt. Crewe (Mat Ranillo III) takes care of his mining business, Sarah finds herself under the wing of Miss Minchin (Jean Garcia), the schoolmistress whose fondness for her students is directly linked to their parents' financial standing. Since Sarah is rich enough to earn the nickname of the title, she is very well-treated, at least while the money holds out.

     Admired by schoolmates who wear matching middy dresses, Sarah is given ostentatiously grand quarters that befit her initial status. In keeping with the story's spirit of noblesse oblige, she finds time to befriend younger girls and charm them with her storytelling skills. Sarah also makes friends with Becky (Angelica Panganiban), the school's scullery maid who becomes her greatest ally once she experiences a severe reversal of fortune. Sarah is both patrician and bereft, with only the magic of her own daydreams to sustain her. As written by Shaira Mella-Salvador, the film injects some elements of contemporary reality into a tale that could well have remained unrelievedly quaint. Less an actors' film than a series of elaborate tableaux, it has a visual eloquence that extends well beyond the limits of its story. This restoration is a bit brighter, but I have to say neither the brightness nor the color grading struck me as unusual or inauthentic looking. While contrast is good, the increased brightness can tend to slightly blanch some scenes, but again I found nothing overly problematic in the presentation. Detail levels are excellent throughout and routinely high in close-ups where everything from the opulent fabrics in the sumptuous costumes attain an almost palpable ambience. Grain resolves naturally, though it has moments of definite uptick in some selected scenes. Sarah... Ang Munting Prinsesa features a 2.0 mix that fully supports the gorgeous music of Nonong Buencamino. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly and the track shows no signs of damage. To see Sarah whirling ecstatically in her attic room on a snowy night, exulting in the feelings summoned by an evocative sight in a nearby window, is to know just how stirringly lovely a children's film can be.

Sound Supervisor: Ramon Reyes

Production Designer: Manny Morfe

Editor: Edgardo "Boy' Vinarao

Musical Director: Nonong Buencamino

Director of Photography: Ely Cruz, F.S.C.

Written By: Shaira Mella-Salvador

Directed By: Romy V. Suzara

     Ishmael Bernal builds and reinforces a mood with unexpected techniques that are simple, personal and resoundingly effective from the movie's opening moments. There are no suffocating close-ups in Hinugot sa Langit (Regal Films, Inc., 1985), instead, individual shots are long and leisurely. The camera movement flows, following the characters as they move about their world. Gradually, this lived-in feeling allows us to inhabit their world, too, and with that comes, not just an understanding but an actual feel for what it must have been like. Perhaps unsurprisingly, offscreen space plays an essential role in the film’s construction. Cinematographer Rody Lacap works with a mostly fixed camera here; the unconventional framing makes us aware of a larger environment and context. In one of the film’s most extraordinary sequences Carmen (Maricel Soriano), is sitting at the doctor's office. Her mind is elsewhere. She is worried. If things go wrong her life could be ruined. Bernal places Carmen at the center of the frame and shows her in a long take as the conversation happens. This is an aspect of consciousness, a moment in life, that we've all experienced. We've all been scared and feeling outside the general mirth. Yet, I've never seen this reality conveyed in a Filipino movie before. The scene is unbearably tense, not because Bernal shows us that Carmen is tense, but rather because he puts us at the table with her, and he does so long enough that we soon feel what she is feeling. The near-constant tension between narrative and image, between what we expect to see and what we are actually shown, makes Bernal’s insert shot all the more essential. Virtually every shot has something novel about it, either in its technique, emotional weight, psychological perception or a combination of all three. 

      Few films have never been as visually enthralling as Lawrence Fajardo’s latest. Everything from camera angles to scene transitions exudes longing. Sugapa (Viva Films, 2023) is an ill-fated romance, and that desirous mood grows until it overwhelms. It's a film about yearning and dependence, which later translates to love, both of which is attainable and unfeasible for lead characters Ben (Aljur Abrenica) and Ana (AJ Raval). The somewhat languid nature of their romance is never stale, nothing seems forced or exaggerated. Sugapa has Fajardo at his most restrained narrative-wise, yet that doesn’t affect the prowess of his directorial abilities nor the thematic expansiveness of the story at hand. Most cinematic romances tell us what to think, having characters state what they feel early on or inviting us to share lustful gazes. Fajardo does it the hard way, building up a complex psychological relationship in which sexual desire feels like an emergent characteristic rather than a starting point. When Ben and Anna focus on one another, the result seems so specific, so intense, as to be incompatible with any other aspect of life. It is also the kind of relationship which can make other people – including the audience – feel shut out, even rejected. The tension between the two extends like a taut wire that sits burdened under the weight of miscommunication, but also threatens to snap at the peak of their vulnerability. A shift in the second half recontextualizes aspects of the first half, but in this shift, Ana's story is more heightened. Over the course of Sugapa, Fajardo continuously elevates what we're watching and the film is never too much to handle. 

     Lino Brocka's Nakaw na Pag-ibig (Associated Entertainment Corporation, 1980) is a work of beauty, tenderness, power and insight. It is a tribute to deft dramatization that the principals are projected fully as the maelstrom of life in which they are trapped and with which they are unable to cope. One may argue that Brocka has given only surface treatment to the society which appears to propel Robert de Asis (Phillip Salvador) to his tragic end and accentuated his love affairs, groping for a higher rung in the social ladder. That it becomes apparent, is basically captious. Robert is obviously an intelligent young man whose background has not equipped him for anything better than menial endeavor. And it is not surprising that the lonely, brooding Robert will find an answer to his crying need for companionship in his drab, unlettered and equally lonely co-worker, Corazon Rivera (Nora Aunor). The forces pushing him to the final, horrible retribution are obvious and a tribute to the naturalism of Theodore Dreiser as he is suddenly exposed to the overwhelming opulence of Cynthia Ocampo (Hilda Koronel) to whose love he succumbs. Corazon becomes a nagging, inconvenient, and homely presence next to Cynthia's beauty. As Robert’s romance with Cynthia blossoms and he falls in love firmly secures the possibility of his better life in high society. At the same time, Robert repeatedly lies and breaks promises to Corazon, refusing to marry her. His desire that she just go away transforms into a murderous impulse when Corazon threatens to endanger any goodwill he’s established with Cynthia’s family. Rather than break it off, he strings her along—and so, quite understandably, she expects Robert to marry her. Since his basic upbringing does not permit him to callously desert Corazon—now frantic with the knowledge that she is bearing his child—he takes surreptitious steps to remedy his untenable position. This phase of his ordeal is a wholly tasteful and compelling handling of a delicate situation. The questions of his morals and intrinsic cowardice here are placed squarely in the eyes of the viewer. With similar integrity, the drama depicts Corazon's death and the subsequent mounting terror and confusion of her lover, faced with the enormity of the tragedy and the reiteration of the insidious thought that while he did not commit murder he must have willed it.  And, Robert, grappling with a transgression he cannot fully comprehend, is a pitiful, yet strangely brave individual as he explains his act and convictions in court. 

     Salvador's portrayal, often terse and hesitating, is full, rich, restrained and, above all, generally credible. Equally poignant is Aunor's characterization of the ill-fated Corazon. Aunor, in my opinion, has never been seen to better advantage than as the colorless factory hand, beset by burgeoning anxieties but clinging to a love she hopes can be rekindled. Under Brocka's expert direction, Koronel's delineation of the rich and beauteous Cynthia is the top effort of her career. It’s a shaded, tender performance and one in which her passionate and genuine romance avoids the bathos common to love as it sometimes comes to the screen. Salvador immersed himself in the weak and insecure morality of his character, resulting in a nervous, sweaty performance. Aunor downplayed her looks with almost no makeup, playing it frumpy and pathetic. But the understanding of their respective characters varies. Aunor played her role from start to finish as a dreary, but no less empathetic innocent in love who was seemingly destined to be disappointed by Robert. Brocka understood Corazon and directed her to be a lusterless character. Salvador played his role under the notion that Robert is unsympathetic, unsophisticated, and ambitious, not realizing that his good looks would do a great deal to counteract his interpretation. Nakaw na Pag-ibig tapers its concentration on the central romance, a cruel affair on Robert’s part that, today, the audience nonetheless wants to see because of the legendary stars involved. This is despite Cynthia's underdeveloped character being a little more than an attractive status symbol to Robert, and despite Aunor's excellent turn as a pitiable victim. Even today, watching the otherwise capable film is an exercise in the appreciation of fine acting and competent direction, as opposed to a heartfelt tragedy, salient sociopolitical text, or believable romance.

Screenplay: Eddie Naval Based on a Story By Theodore Dreiser

Director of Photography: Conrado Baltazar, F.S.C.

Music: George Canseco

Film Editor: Augusto Salvador

Art Direction: Joey Luna

Sound Supervision: Ben L. Patajo

Directed By: Lino Brocka