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Ang Nerseri
English Title: The Nursery
Year of Release: 2009
Director & Screenwriter: Vic Acedillo Jr.
Producer: Cinemalaya Foundation
Cast: Jaclyn Jose, Timothy Castillo, Lance Raymundo, Alwyn Uytingco, Claudia Enriquez, Ynez Veneracion, Tony Mabesa, Chona Fernando, Babit de Luna, Eunice Lagusad, JM de Guzman, Carme Sanchez, Irene Llopis, Gigi Locsin, Chiqui del Carmen, Gigi Pirote, Imelda Valunsat, John Hernandez, Chona Fernando, Troy de Guzman, Carmelo Soberano, Anthony Corpus, Jayr Cerdenola, Loy Maga, Mark Macalintal, Arvin Trinidad, Jonathan Olano, Melqui Sedic Asuncion, Raymond Roman, Emma Galvez, Flor Salanga, Ma. Ozita “Chit” Pambid, Bernie Villapando, Janice Fuentes, Ian Paraiso
Mai is at her wits’ end as a single mother caring for several kids, all grownup except for Cocoy. Her eldest son moved out and refuses contact with the family, while another son, Jun, has just been recommitted to drug rehab. Still another son, Dean, is acting out also because of addiction, harassing his only sister, Lyn, who eventually suffers a nervous breakdown. Realizing that she’ll need extra funds, Mai decides to go to Bohol to sell off some property, leaving Cocoy in charge of his siblings as well as Mai’s orchid nursery. Cocoy however has also been masquerading as an outstanding student, and has to assume more than his share of responsibilities when Mai keeps extending her sojourn.
Personal projects in independent cinema are so commonplace that they have become near-synonymous with the practice. No surprise then that the material of Ang Nerseri—familial difficulties arising from a combination of psychological and financial problems—observes the expected pattern of these troubles resolving in increasing complications, with barely enough breathing space for the characters to recover from the suffering they have to endure. Yet the film sets itself off from like-minded works by being devoid of any form of narcissism, focused instead on a careful recounting of the emotional costs of the incidents that it narrates. What showiness it possesses lies in the technological risk-taking of using a then-newish digital single-lens reflex camera, the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, a full year before other productions (mostly in Europe) figured out its usefulness for their film projects; even in this undertaking, the fine arts-trained Vic Acedillo Jr. wound up muting his screen colors except for the cooler hues, providing an uncanny feeling of comfort and distance amid the internal turbulence swirling within and among the characters. Acedillo approached his material with hesitation and humility, ironically investing it with an approachability that it affirms via well-observed details and subtle unexpected humor.
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