SARI-SARING SINENG PINOY

     Negrense food is an integral part of Under a Piaya Moon (Puregold Cinepanalo Film Festival, Bakunawa Films, Green Pelican Studios, Jungle Room Creatives, Cloudy Duck, 2024) almost like the main character itself. This is evident not only in the storytelling, mainly centered around the meals and the inner-city pastry competition, but also in the very shots of the film. Food is the protagonist, with a lot of close-ups of Stephen (Jeff Moses) cooking and the camera following the food as it goes through all the necessary steps of the preparation. The camera hardly ever stands still: particularly in the scenes where food is filmed, the camera is always tracking to follow the subject matter, making the whole film a lot more dynamic and interesting. The camera movements make us feel like we are part of the scenes, like we are also standing in the kitchen and about to taste the food. The film is also excellent in portraying the atmosphere of Bacolod City during the 1980's, as every element of the production design creates the period allowing the audience to be transported back in time and space, to another epoch. Foodies will devour every second on screen of this delectable ode to the love of the culinary arts but love takes on a different capacity here as the culinary wizardry becomes quite literally, a love language. It’s quite astonishing to see Lolo Poldo (Joel Torre) and Lola Fina (Chart Motus) move around the kitchen, elegantly industrious with the camera moving freely between them, over their shoulders and by their hands, it is a beautiful show of culinary dressage. There’s not a hint of traditional plot until about twenty minutes into this genteel but impassioned romance and that challenge is already set for the viewer. Under the assured and patient direction of Kurt Soberano, Under a Piaya Moon is a captivating celebration of Negrense cuisine. While the formidable lead easily win us over, the true star is the food. Every step involved— from selecting the ingredients and cooking everything perfectly to the grand presentation, the ultimate savoring of flavors is cherished. Under a Piaya Moon is truly a feast as the camera moves nimbly through the kitchen, capturing all the work that goes into each delectable dessert. We get to hear each slice, sizzle and splash while enjoying the stunning array being lovingly prepared and eaten with gusto. 

     There is an enthusiasm for the culinary and a delicacy to how these delicacies are filmed with long takes moving back and forth. However, what stands out is Soberano presenting the sensation of cooking and food as a force to communicate something. The nearly imperceptible movement of time is also crucial to the film. Soberano takes an almost Miyazakian approach to pacing and plot by having characters sit in mundane moments and gliding over excess backstory. We watch pastries being carried from the kitchen and served with care. The performances are remarkable. Motus is perfectly cast as Lola Fina, exuding radiance and tragic emotions in her moments of frailty. These moments aren’t common occurrences and doesn’t last very long but when she hurts it is so impactful that when she gets back to herself, one can’t help but anticipate a time when the weakness triumphs over her for good. Torre's Lolo Leopoldo is befitting of a life partner. There is admiration and a transparency to his emotions that lead one to believe this relationship’s had time to evolve which, it has. Torre and Motus can spur endless moments and emotions just by looking at each other. While the food preparation may seem complicated and time-pressed, the overall mood in the kitchen is harmonious. The would-be apprentice, Stephen is particularly impressive. The characters live in a tender, gauzy world; though it's not one without challenges and heartache, they nevertheless find in food a way to treat all ills, celebrate all milestones, understand all conflicts. In their world (and one I wouldn't mind visiting), well-made food—and the time and care it takes to create it—is not a chore or an indulgence. It is a sign of appreciation and respect, a way to acknowledge all that we are blessed with for sustenance. Here, gathering around food is a ritual, almost ceremonial inviting everyone to the table. Under a Piaya Moon relishes the beauty of natural light with sumptuous cinematography. The film’s idealized and romanticized light suffuses the screen with warmth and tenderness that suit the subjects wonderfully. Under a Piaya Moon is a delectable feature, a celebration of Bacolod gastronomy and its historic, culinary traditions. It is not just about the taste of food, but of love, beauty and human connection, offering a deeply gratifying viewing experience. 

Directed By: Kurt Soberano

Written By: Vicente Garcia Groyon

Director of Photography: Nathan Bringuer

Production Design: Jed Sicangco

Editor: Kurt Sobrano, Rodney Jarder Jr.

Sound Design Supervisor: Roem Ortiz

Original Musical Score: Paulo Almaden

 

     Misteryo sa Tuwa (Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, 1984) follows Ponsoy (Tony Santos, Sr.), Mesiong (Johnny Delgado) and Jamin (Ronnie Lazaro) as they stumble upon a suitcase in a wrecked plane – with the narrative detailing the myriad of complications that ensue after they decide to keep the money. Writer/director, Abbo Q. dela Cruz in his filmmaking debut, delivers a slow-moving yet mostly compelling drama that benefits substantially from its stellar performances, as Santos and Delgado deliver often captivating work that goes a long way towards cultivating a sporadically enthralling atmosphere. It’s clear, as well, that Lazaro is equally good as Jamin. Alicia Alonzo (Pinang) and Amable Quiambao (Ada) have big scenes that, in other hands, might have led to grandstanding. They perform them so directly and simply that we are moved almost to tears. The characters are rich, full and plausible. The direction and screenplay are meticulous in forming and building the characters, and placing them within a drama that also functions as a thriller. Mystery over the true identity of some characters, Lito Anzures’ villainous turn as Castro is all exaggerated verbal and physical tics. And two confrontations in the woods–one suspenseful, one heartbreaking. The materials of Misteryo sa Tuwa are not unfamiliar, but rarely is a film this skillful at drawing us, step by step, into the consequences of their actions. The inherently compelling subject matter is heightened by an ongoing emphasis on overtly captivating interludes and sequences, and there’s little doubt that Misteryo sa Tuwa eventually does become a far more tense experience than one might’ve initially anticipated (ie Dela Cruz transforms certain moments into almost unbearably suspenseful set pieces), focusing on more realistic violence--violence that has consequences. We're plunged intelligently and realistically into their small-town lives. When we're into the story, we willingly and easily go with them. Misteryo sa Tuwa faces its moral implications, instead of mocking them. We are not allowed to stand outside the story and feel superior to it; we are drawn along, step by step, as the characters make compromises that lead to unimaginable consequences.

     Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and granted a 1080p transfer, Abbo Q. dela Cruz's Misteryo sa Tuwa arrives on digital HD courtesy of  ABS-CBN Film Restoration. There are some extremely light vertical lines that occasionally pop up. Tiny flecks can be spotted as well. Detail and image depth, however are very pleasing. Generally speaking, contrast levels also remain stable throughout the entire film. The blacks are well balanced and there is a good range of healthy whites and grays. There are no traces of problematic degraining corrections. Also, sharpening adjustments have not been performed. There are no serious compression issues, but I did notice some extremely light strobing during the last half of the film. Still, overall image stability is very good and the film has a very pleasing organic look. Kantana Post-Production Co., Ltd. have performed various contrast adjustments and noise corrections, as a result, certain scenes look smoother. Film grain also appears slightly better resolved. Damage marks and cuts occasionally pop up here and there. Lastly, there are no serious stability issues. Misteryo sa Tuwa looks slightly softer but tighter and definitely not contrasty. The LPCM 2.0 track is solid. The dialog is crisp, clean, stable and very easy to follow. Its dynamic amplitude is rather limited, but has very pleasing depth and fluidity. Clarity and depth are good,  there's very light background hiss that makes its presence felt. It is not distracting, but more sensitive viewers will obviously notice when it becomes more prominent. The overall dynamic intensity is quite limited, this should not be surprising considering the fact that it was produced in 1984. As straightforward in narrative as it is gut-wrenching in effect, Misteryo sa Tuwa is a movie you watch with a mounting sense of dread.

Sound: Ramon Reyes

Production Design: Don Escudero with Rodell Cruz

Cinematography: Rody Lacap

Music: Jaime Fabregas

Edited By: Jess Navarro

Written & Directed By: Abbo Q. dela Cruz

     Antoinette Jadaone's Sunshine (Project 8 Projects, Anima Studios, Happy Infinite Productions, Cloudy Duck Pictures, 2024) captures a young woman who knows she’s on the precipice of immense change, but when it comes it hurts, yet she's ultimately strengthened by it. Followed by an unexpected pregnancy, Sunshine Francisco’s (Maris Racal) dreams of making it in the world of gymnastics and penetrating the national team in hopes of competing for the Olympics, is forced to make grown-up decisions despite being a kid herself. What’s most interesting about Jadaone’s screenplay is how it challenges our perceptions both positive and negative. She's clearly out to elicit a response, not so much in a provocative way but a therapeutic one. No matter how balanced you may try to be as a viewer, you’re going to choose a side predicated on your own experiences (and perhaps even your own gender). And you may feel like the side you’re on is unfair in some moments and justified in others. As Sunshine seeks comfort, both her and the audience are able to see how much she’s changed. The moments spent with her sister, Geleen (Jennica Garcia) are affecting, because they show Sunshine caught in flux between her past and future. The story’s conflicts expose the shortcomings of her character and ultimately begs the question who is the person she is about to become. After a shocking revelation (one that literally unfolds with all the grace of a door being thrown open and does that shock ever work), Sunshine and Miggy (Elijah Canlas) begin to cut at each other, Jadaone soon makes a strong case for Sunshine having to sort out her own pain. Racal delivers a performance that builds in intensity and depth as the film unfolds and captures the nuances of quiet strength and vulnerability. The specificity with which she approaches the character keeps her believable at every turn. It helps when an actress fully understands the role placed before her. Another fantastic bit of acting comes from Garcia as Geleen specifically when she figures out that her sister is pregnant. 

     The push and pull of Sunshine and the young girl (Annika Co) illustrates the struggle to reconcile her youth with the immense weight of her decision. Midway through the establishment of Co’s character as introduced in the first few frames of the film is that she may or may not be Sunshine’s unborn child. The film is not attached to an ongoing debate or a mainstream agenda and seems like it was made completely outside of those confines, which is often rare. Sunshine is a movie about the uses and occasional uselessness of language, with stop-and-go verbal cadences that seem particularly attentive to what its characters say and don’t say. Sunshine honors feeling, passion, discomfort and hurt, and drops the audience into this world without an explanation. That style carries over to Pao Orendain’s equally raw cinematography, capturing Manila from the almost dusty sidewalk pavements. It’s a smooth snapshot of the fleeting yet monumental moments of despair and self-actualization. So much of what passes for Filipino cinema focuses on our trauma. Sunshine's tendency to guard her innermost thoughts and feelings is not a defense, she can hold her own with anyone, but it’s instructive to see why she clams up around Coach Eden warmly played by Meryll Soriano and best friend, Thea (Xyriel Manabat). Rather than stitch it into the fabric of the characters’ lives as reality does, it often sticks out like a sore thumb soliciting sympathy while minimizing all other empathetic avenues. Sunshine is not without its rough moments—there's an honest examination of unwanted pregnancy and abortion. This re-calibrates the characters as people who are dealing with human issues. Sunshine comes to life in dialogue of brash vitality and passionate understanding; the actors aided by Jadaone’s attentive direction, realize these scenes with energy that the overarching plot often omits. Sunshine captures that unexpected, earth-shattering moment in life when you realize adulthood, real adulthood, is not so simple. It’s difficult, it’s scary and it’s heartbreaking at times. That’s what Racal’s beautiful performance conveys. When Miggy turned his back on their relationship once it reaches a pinnacle, you feel it in your gut she’s stuck alone with overwhelming emotions.

Written and Directed By; Antoinette Jadaone

Director of Photography: Pao Orendain, LPS

Production Designer: Eero Yves S. Francisco, PDCP

Editor: Ben Tolentino

Musical Scorer: Rico Blanco

Sound Designer: Vincent Villa

 

     Jackstone 5 (Apex Creative Production, Inc., 2025) starts out like one of those reunion movies where friends from long ago gather again to settle old scores, open old wounds, old romances and make new beginnings. All of those rituals have been performed by the end of the film, but curiously enough, the movie isn’t really about what happens. It’s about how it feels. This is a story more interested in tone and mood than in big plot points. The first act is devoted to introductions and plot problems are assigned to various characters. The second act develops the problems and the third act solves them with appropriate surprises. By the end, we can expect that one couple will reconcile, one will begin a new romance, one will find a new truth and at least one old secret will be revealed. Oh, and a skeleton will be taken out of the closet. All of those things happen in Jackstone 5 but in a strangely low-key way. The movie is written by Eric Ramos and directed by Joel C. Lamangan (who also appears in the film). It is human nature to form groups and be loyal to them. There are real groups, like families and artificial groups, like friends you grow up with. The artificial groups create instant traditions and in remembering them you are pulled back for a moment when all life seemed to be ahead of you. Now it seems more precious and that promise more elusive than ever before. Five gay men revisit their past, reexamine their present and prepare for a better future. They represent a vivid assortment of diverse characters which includes freewheeling Felix (Eric Quizon), Remy and Pido (Jim Pebanco and Gardo Verzosa), whose (friendship) seems to be in trouble, straight acting Naldo (Lamangan) and the insensitive Bruno (Arnel Ignacio). They rediscover themselves, the people they once were and the people they could once again become. They learn that life isn't about demarcation lines. It doesn't have arbitrary starts and stops that correspond with an age, an education, a look, a feel. Life is organic, a complex element that builds off itself where everything that's to come is shaped by everything that's been. 

     The movie deliberately captures a subtle complexion that allows it to exist sort of in a bubble in time, a bubble that has become stagnant but suddenly stretches back and if they can understand where they are and why beyond the physical sense, they'll remain in that bubble that will stretch along with them for the rest of their lives. It's kind of genius to get to know the story of these characters from the perspective of adults looking back. There's a lot of delight and laughter as the friends reconnect, but there's also plenty of drama that needs sorting out as well. The movie meanders, but that's the point. Life evolves but also stays the same. It can be recaptured by a sight, a sound, a smell and carried forward not as a mere reminder of a point in time, but as a living part of something larger that just sort of got pushed by the wayside, not completely erased with the passage of time. It might be a little hard to buy that they can remember with such vivid detail the various ins and outs of their childhood experience, but the cast does a fine job of selling the idea that they can and indeed have. The movie enjoys a very organic, natural flow. It's more about feelings and ideas that sort of just swirl around and becomes a little more evident with each passing moment. There's a genuine sense of reconnection between them and a very real, very tangible excitement about returning back to a place that in their hearts they still call home. Ignacio, who could have played his role half-asleep, still manages to show a gleaming pleasure in his moments of broad farce. And each of the performers registers strongly in their big moment. Of the entire cast, Quizon and Verzosa stand out in showy roles, they get to be great, because Lamangan doesn’t need them for anything structural. Pebanco renders an entirely disciplined performance that underlies the vulnerability of his character. Lamangan gives his lines personal rhythm and brittle snap and as the lonely singleton, Ignacio demonstrates that he is an able physical comedian. Jackstone 5 is imbued with optimism and positivity, and as long as you have the right support system, anything is possible. 

Screenplay: Eric Ramos

Director of Photography: TM Malones, Journalie Payonan

Editing: Vanessa Ubas de Leon

Music Scorer: Mikoy Morales

Sound Design: Fatima Nerikka Salim

Production Design: Cyrus Khan

Directed By; Joel C. Lamangan

     Adapted from Himala: Isang Musikal, the 2003 stage play, Isang Himala (CreaZion Studios, UxS Stories, Kapitol Films, CMB Film Services, 2024) is a film that stubbornly refuses to shake its theatrical roots. Director Jose Lorenzo Diokno strives mightily to make the material cinematic, trying any number of tricks at his disposal. Even more successful are the film’s complicated long takes, encouraging an ebullience in viewers that’s likely of a similar (if lesser) character to what audience members in 1982 felt when experiencing the film, Himala firsthand. It’s bound to Nora Aunor whose performance adds a note of tragedy to the character’s fate. It’s a lot of weight for a musical and as a film, Isang Himala feels like a play that is weighed down rather than a film that unfolds naturally. But here the seams of the theater keep showing at every turn, so on film, Isang Himala rarely feels free. Not in the way Aicelle Santos' Elsa seems too studied in her opacity – not a sign of Ricky Lee’s own sly handling of her on the page – as a character, she plays to sensibilities that seem out of place. Elsa seems too keyed into the projections and not the central complications of the role, but it’s a stolidness that is centered by the surety of the music. And that’s something the film hedges on and that Santos' performance flounders with. Isang Himala is a heavy musical. It is unrelenting in the way that its ending gives us no catharsis. Everything is so tightly wound; even the hints of levity sustain themselves on undercurrents of desperation. Diokno’s direction leaves the actors carrying that weight and it’s too much to carry. The film is aesthetically and tonally flat, with a sheen of browness which is the worst thing for the kind of pulsating crescendo that informs Diokno’s drama. But that’s not to say that Isang Himala isn’t still a partially successful adaptation, if only for the pleasure of hearing Lee’s bracing words delivered by Bituin Escalante and Kakki Teodoro. In fact, Teodoro is a live wire that ping pongs from manic outbursts to soulful, tear-streaked monologues, from carnal lusting to tragic resignation at a moment’s notice. Teodoro commands the film, leading the vast majority of scenes and staking her claim in the story. Her character Nimia recounts traumas and dreams, and opines about the ambition she has to transcend the limitations of imagination. Escalante and Teodoro's efforts reflect a performative staginess that doesn’t entirely work within the cinematic setting, even as they remain accomplished efforts. 

     That dissonance is further punctuated when considered alongside the work from co-star David Ezra playing Orly, who deliver no less affecting but a comparatively subdued performance. But it’s the lead role that’s severely lacking and no amount of fabricated prestige can change that. It’s this inadequacy that suggests Diokno and his team weren’t all entirely on the same page, which makes for a frustrating viewing experience. Isang Himala's digital filmmaking likewise serves to highlight the artifice of the entire production, lending the ironic semblance of a stage play despite all of the nifty camerawork. And yet, Vincent de Jesus’ music consistently make their way to the fore; Lee has a remarkable ability to effortlessly and eloquently weave such varied topics as religion, art and exploitation into powerful unity. Lee’s work is as relevant as it ever was, revealing both the subtle and obvious ways that power is wielded to stir anger and hopelessness, which is in turn too often unleashed upon those facing the very same struggles and hardships. And therein lies the problem: this adaptation is unwilling to risk much in cinematic transposition and thus putting all of the responsibility on the performers to provide the juice. It’s the same problem audiences have watched play out across any number of film adaptations. There’s a jarring oddity to the filmmaking when each pivotal turning point is framed with the same kind of boxed in camera work. This story is about people and the ways they externalize their grief, pain and anger. And, yet, Diokno privileges close-ups. His instincts seem out of sync. Yes, the story is moving towards that final operatic tragedy but we are not marking time until then. The story needs to live, breathe and feel. On screen, everything feels small and crowded. A story of rape retains the same cadence. When the music begins to play, the actors sell the enthusiasm but the filmmaking itself doesn’t feel like it’s tapping out keys or feeling rhythm. It’s dutiful and earnest but it’s not lively. Santos' hurt and pain, even when the direction traps her – can be unpredictable. It can be desperate and it can even be unhinged. Escalante and Teodoro holds the key to the film’s engagement. They inhabit the tiredness of their existence without announcement. Diokno insists on opening up the muscal, literalizing Elsa’s heartache, but the moments with Nimia have a naturalness that does not need to be emphasized. They just are. The real miracle comes in the brief moments the film allows them to just exist. As filmed theater, Isang Himala lacks the exciting personal dynamics seen in the art-making processes.

Screenplay By: Ricky Lee, Jose Lorenzo Diokno

Lyrics and Music: Vincent de Jesus

Production Design: Ericson Navarro, PDCP

Cinematography: Carlo Canlas Mendoza, LPS

Film Editor: Benjamin Tolentino

Music: Teresa Barrozo

Sound Design: Albert Michael M. Idioma, Emilio Bien Sparks

Direction: Jose Lorenzo Diokno