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Talipandas

English Title: Traitor
Year of Release: 1958
Director: Conrado Conde
Screenwriter: Ding M. de Jesus
(From a serialized komiks story by Francisco V. Coching)
Producer: Sampaguita Pictures

Cast: Rita Gomez, Luis Gonzales, Van de Leon, Carlos Salazar, Rosa Mia, Bella Flores, Zeny Zabala, Bert Olivar, Ely Roque, Art Morado, Lydia Correa, Jaime Javier, Pablo Raymundo, Willie Dado, Sabas San Juan, Matimtiman Cruz, Marcela Garcia, Loida Medina, Apolonia Aguilar

Having taken the fall for his brother Andy, Bien Lopez confronts his sibling for betraying him by cohabiting with his wife Stella while he was still in prison. Although Stella insists that she was forced into the arrangement, Bien’s rejection drives her to stab Andy and commit suicide. Unaware so far of what his wife did, Bien watches a striptease number at Moonlite Cabaret; the performer, Esperanza, migrated to Manila to work at the same place where her mother once performed, to track down the man who ruined her mother’s life. Bien and Espie manage to provide comfort and support for each other and develop an alliance just when a besotted customer provides Espie with better lodging and a gang leader named George Mendez takes a prurient interest in the nightclub’s hit performer.

The fact that two komiks-sourced melodramas from the same year—this and Gregorio Fernandez’s Malvarosa—featured slum residents living by railroad tracks must have been more than coincidental. Intensely psychological where Malvarosa was sociological, Talipandas eventually abandons its expository locale when its central female character upgrades to better housing (courtesy of a loaded patron); but the opening scene’s train not only brought her to the city in the first place, it also ended the life of her would-have-been rival, the narrative hero’s wife. The plot’s twists and reversals affirm the serial nature of its origin, although it would take over a decade, with the emergence of Lino Brocka, before such irregular dramatic arcs could be tempered by an adequately prepared talent. What Talipandas provides in recompense for its directorial unevenness is a willingness to embrace material that Hollywood’s Hays Office would have rejected as extreme if not beyond-legal, from white slavery through suicide and fratricide to incest. The heroine contends with a pair of concerned surrogate mothers, one benevolent (Ely Roque) and another malignant (Bella Flores); but Rita Gomez’s sensuous and fiery reading ultimately draws the strands together in an impressive braid, while making it clear why the directors of the next Golden Age considered it a treat to work with her.

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Die Beautiful

Additional Language: “Swardspeak” [Philippine gay lingo]
Year of Release: 2016
Director: Jun Robles Lana
Screenwriter: Rody Vera
(From a story by Jun Robles Lana, with Fudge Silva as consultant)
Producers: The IdeaFirst Company & Octobertrain Films

Cast: Paolo Ballesteros, Christian Bables, Joel Torre, Gladys Reyes, Adrian Alandy, Albie Casiño, Inah de Belen, IC Mendoza, Cedrick Juan, Lou Veloso, Mimi Juareza, Iza Calzado, Eugene Domingo, Jade Lopez, Kokoy de Santos, Juris Ocampo, Rica Paras, Kyle Gabrielle, Adrianna So, Lui Manansala, Sue Prado, Mel Martinez, Bekimon, Patricia Ismael, Lito “Shalala” Reyes, Karen delos Reyes, Jace Flores, Erlinda Villalobos, Star Orjaliza, Lao Rodriguez, Giovanni Baldisseri, Steeve Fernandez, Khalid Ruiz, Sunshine Teodoro, Joy Desales, Perry Escaño, Ernie Enriquez, Bing Yumang, Laurence Mossman, Kenshee Montefalcon, Christine Joy de Guzman, Jordhen Suan, Faye Alhambra

Upon fulfilling her lifelong dream of winning a televised gay beauty contest, Trisha literally drops dead. Her best friend Barbs strives to fulfill her final wish, which is to be dressed and made up as a famous celebrity for each day of her week-long wake. Each costume change occasions a recollection by the people in her life, of Trisha’s struggle as a destitute transgender woman, banished from home by her homophobic father and abused (though occasionally also loved) by the straight men she falls for—though she nevertheless remains focused on the goal, difficult for someone in her station, of being recognized and celebrated as someone with beauty, wit, and chutzpah.

Most pop-culture experts might wonder about the advisability of presenting a trans person’s narrative as an epic tale, considering its intensely private dimensions and its psychoanalytic conflicts. Like its central character, Die Beautiful might come across as too loud, strong, insistent, confusing even; but like the Entwicklungsroman, or development narrative, that it actually is, it will be capable of fully rewarding those who may have resisted it initially but return to it after a while, preferably with some intervening maturity. Jun Robles Lana’s careful (sometimes overcareful) cultivation of his handling of queer material over a long period of time has resulted, with this film, in the fulfillment of the promise that the always well-patronized outings of our comedy stars, from Dolphy onward, kept pursuing: a life in full, from an always-queer awakening, through adversity in the pursuit of happiness and pleasure, to a too-early though fittingly fabulous ending (though sometimes with ill-advised—because unnatural, unlikely, and moralistic—conversion to the straight option). A structural marvel, the DB screenplay enlightens the audience just enough to be able to “get” Trisha’s emotional placement through the various stages in her life, with the prospect of further, often painful but always well-earned insight serving as narrative cliffhanger. Paolo Ballesteros and Christian Bables, the actors who appear in nearly all the major scenes, provide the unexpected bonus of fomenting an interactive chemistry, overflowing with confidence, humor, and humanity, that effortlessly diffuses through the rest of the cast. It may sound ironic, but Trisha’s truly beautiful death betokens a life well-lived in the only way a genuinely heroic citizen could make it.

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Alapaap

Additional Language: Ilocano
English Title: Clouds
Year of Release: 1984
Director: Tata Esteban
Screenwriter: Rei Nicandro
(From a story by Tata Esteban)
Producers: Aces Films International, Oro Vista Motion Pictures, Rare Breed Ltd.

Cast: William Martinez, Mark Gil, Michael de Mesa, Tanya Gomez, Isadora, Eva Rose Palma, Ed Villapol, Rosemarie Gil, Liza Lorena, Jabbar, Jose Cortez, Benny Resurreccion, Jerry O’Hara, Rez Cortez

After a present-day death certificate is filled out, we inexplicably flash forward to September 28, 1986, when Jake links up with the brothers Dave and Donald, to ask their help in completing a film that he needs to submit as his thesis project in an American university. The two suggest taking a trip to Baguio (bringing their girlfriends along), where they can search for material and possibly even shoot some footage there. After they persuade a reluctant old man to allow them to stay at his guesthouse, increasingly strange events begin to happen. When the brothers show Jake the shot they secretly filmed of him making out with a native lass outdoors, and realize that he had no one with him, they have no choice but to conclude that an otherworldly force is bent on messing up with their lives.

Anyone who can explain why 1984 was the most artistically productive year in Philippine film history might also have to account for why the critics of that time took it for granted. The yearend Metro Manila Film Festival, as an example, was so spoiled for great choices, that it could afford to toss a few token awards to an exceptionally creative debut film and forget about it for good. Directed by the fairly obscure actor Steve Paolo (who was also producer and production designer) using his actual name, Alapaap took the ECP’s name literally, ensured audience patronage by banking on sex scenes and the upper-body female nudity then-exempted by censorship for depictions of indigenous practice, and scored largely on the basis of its skillful appropriation of giallo-horror principles. Its spectacle of unsurprisingly above-average performances aided significantly in overriding a few instances of anachronisms and illogical developments—with also a then-unremarked exceptional casting of the Eigenmann brothers (Michael de Mesa and Mark Gil) as well as topflight delivery by Tanya Gomez. As in countless other Philippine horror samples, the City of Pines embodies the collision between modernity and ancestral culture, but in harsher terms than usual. The ending is meant to provide some respite from the conflict, but the film is clever enough to take as much as it gives.

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Gayuma: Sana’y Mahalin Mo Rin Ako

Alternate Title: Gayuma
English Translation: Charm: I Hope You’ll Love Me Too
Year of Release: 1995
Director: Tata Esteban
Screenwriter: Rei Nicandro
Producer: Falcon Films

Cast: Amanda Page, Julio Diaz, Maritoni Fernandez, Jay Manalo, Danny Ramos, Shirley Palma, Marissa Delgado, Lucita Soriano, Shola Luna, Connie Chua, Dennis Adobas, Archi Adamos, Boy Alano, Tata Esteban, Turko Cervantes, Gino Ilustre, Angel Baldomar, Allan Quimbo, Julian Alvaro, Bigtime Castillo, Bay Cristobal, Boy Davao, Ray Davao, Gel Dungca, Ihman Esturco, Al Eugenio, Bong Ferrer, Gil Gaganti, Saldy Golo, Berting Lago, Mariz Mauricio, Sonny Navarro, Tony Navarro, Nilo Odiaman, Doming Olivar, Tess Orias, Rudy Pontigon, Daisy Reyes, Cloyd Robinson, Dagul Salazar, Noel Sandoval, Edgar Santiago, Ina Suarez, Francisco Uno, Junior Uno

Lynn Blackwell, a half-American Pinay in Subic, longs to meet with the father who abandoned her. She professes affection for her boyfriend Dondon but leaves for Manila to meet an American pen pal who promised to take her with him to the US, but the guy leaves because of some rowdy men. When Lynn arrives, they spike her drink and kidnap her to rape and then abandon her. Meanwhile the slum-dwelling Lydia, who lives with the good-for-nothing gambler Rubing, finds frustration after the herbalists she consults are unable to cure her infertility. She encounters the dazed and confused Lynn on a jeepney ride and takes her home to care for her. Just as King, the neighborhood toughie, has taken an interest in Lydia, Rubing finds Lynn attractive enough to use her wish to migrate to the US to hoodwink her.

Two reflexive turns mark Gayuma: Sana’y Mahalin Mo Rin Ako and remind us of Tata Esteban’s intensive film immersion, apparent since his first film, Alapaap (Clouds, 1984). One is at the beginning, when the scriptwriter directly addresses the camera to explain that despite the forthcoming presentation’s sensational content, it’s actually based on true stories. The second arrives when we think that the misfortune that’s about to befall Lynn, the naïve provincial, might be carried out by King, the same slum bully professing an interest in his neighbor Lydia; as it turns out, King’s an extra who plays hostage in a movie scene where he’s dismissed after his service is no longer needed, and Lydia eventually handles him in more or less the same way. Christian morality still overpowers Gayuma’s narrative framework, but then one doesn’t have to be reduced to the Manichaean treatment that typifies such an approach: the parable of Dives and Lazarus, for example, allows for multiple, even contradictory, readings, and we find in the two primary characters not just a gender switch but also a constant uncertainty about who between them suffers in nobility and who gets punished for her privilege. Undeniably, as befits a feminist narrative, a transference from the more familially oriented Lydia to the perplexed and traumatized Lynn takes place, but then how did Lydia manage to handle her abusive and deceitful husband? This is where Gayuma plugs into an entire generational pop-culture trend: all the best straight-male directors, from working in genres that probably wore them out from decades of insistent masculinism, turned pro-women and queer-friendly during this period. Lydia’s BFF was her unapologetically out trans neighbor, who teaches her to be more critical of the bull dispensed by both her hubby and the herbalists who claim to have the means of jump-starting her motherhood aspiration, with her “adoption” of Lynn compounding her husband’s betrayal. Esteban’s fascination with the tricks his characters play on one another and, consequently, on the audience, arguably peaks with Gayuma—helped in no small measure by its cinematographic properties. Sergio Lobo had been disparaged for neglecting his duties with Ishmael Bernal’s major multicharacter entries, but returns with a vengeance and sets down evidence of a prowess that could never be equalled by anyone, except perhaps by the late Conrado Baltazar. Overdue for rediscovery and deserving of accolades that went to far less deserving entries during its time.

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1—Still Lives

Year of Release: 1999
Director & Screenwriter: Jon Red
Producers: Pelipula Productions & Blue Cord

Cast: Joel Torre, Nonie Buencamino, Ray Ventura, Ynez Veneracion, Alan Paule, Caridad Sanchez, Archi Adamos, Soliman Cruz, Mel Martinez, Raymond Keannu, Mon Confiado, Richard Quan, Nathan Forrest, Randy Punsal, Benjie Felipe, Leon Miguel, Jun Ureta, Ian Victoriano, Raul Morit, Michael Angelo Dagñalan, Ruben Lee, Bombi Plata, Roberto Pangan, Larry Manda, Bong Rosario, Jason Red, Michael Red

Badong, a neighborhood drug dealer, seeks to maintain his dominance via the standard carrot-and-stick approach. He exudes friendly warmth toward his most productive earners, but metes lethal punishment when his clients displease him. He warns Enteng, his clean-cut personal assistant, that he cannot bow out of the business mainly because of the trouble caused by Paul, his thieving friend. An associate, Nardo, wishes to propose a money-making scheme although he also owes Badong for past unpaid transactions. Badong proceeds confidently, having paid off influential officials, but fails to contend with the reality that government authority never really operates as a monolithic entity.

2—Ang Pirata

English Translation: The Pirate
Year of Release: 2013
Director & Screenwriter: Jon Red
Producer: Pelipula Productions

Cast: Shamaine Buencamino, Mon Confiado, Ketchup Eusebio, Ronnie Lazaro, Bembol Roco, Stephanie Tablizo, Adrienne Vergara, Raul Morit, Hector Macaso, Steph Tablizo, Adrienne Vergara, Diling Castro, EJ Salcedo, Larry Manda, Ogi Sugatan, Danny Red, Jon Red

Gerry and his henchperson Bert are hired by a certain colonel to clandestinely capture and, if necessary, eliminate local pushers of drug and media products. Bert grew up in rural poverty and swore to rise in the ranks, although his older sister Marinette, despite eventually marrying Gerry, ridicules him for succeeding in violent extralegal activities. Two schoolgirls in the vicinity of their safehouse develop a sapphic relationship, but when one of them breaks up, her ex acts out her heartbreak by selling pirated DVDs, thus setting herself up as an easy target for the operatives. Although not the first abducted victim to resist, she puts up a valiant struggle.

Acknowledged as the work that initiated the independent-digital trend in the Philippines, Still Lives has managed to live up to its promise, despite a narrative resolution whose twist may have seemed too clever by half. Its longer-lasting feat is enabled by strategies that several generations of successors tended to take for granted from the get-go, thus resulting in more failures than necessary: an intimate familiarity with the culture that it engages with, and a commitment by its creative forces to serve the best interests of said social context, including a willingness to suspend judgment in order to more accurately depict its most difficult-to-access aspects. The facts that digital technology itself still had to evolve more fully and that the team could have benefited from a budget several times larger than what the presentation languished on: these become moot points when set against the onslaught of an inspired cast and offbeat elements introduced ostensibly to prop up a controlling gimmick, but ultimately implemented in order to augment the film’s entertainment value. Red himself provided his own demonstration in a series of releases, with Ang Pirata resembling SL the most closely in terms of its (mostly) confined setting and thuggish social environment. His command of contrasting stylistic elegance, unexpectedly dark humor, and startlingly ferocious violence remained intact, with an advancement in extracting peak performances, notably in the hard-bitten yet heartrending delivery of Mon Confiado. The narrative premise in AP might appear even more implausible than SL’s,[1] but in only a few years the fascist presidency of Rodrigo Duterte would commence, with extrajudicial executions openly sanctioned by a chief executive now justifiably incarcerated for the traumatizing abnormality he induced in the country’s historical consciousness.

Note

[1] The filmmaker mentioned the lead actors’ costuming in Ang Pirata as his “spoof/homage to 1960s action cinema,” where local secret agents in spy films were dressed like their Western counterparts despite the tropical weather, as a means of affirming their social hypocrisy (Facebook Messenger reply, April 19, 2026). Regarding the campaign against so-called pirated DVDs: the historically specific activity was instigated by Jack Valenti, a frequent official guest of Imelda Marcos during her husband’s military dictatorship. Pirated videos were forcibly interlinked with US Congress trade penalties and even falsely claimed as responsible for funding Islamic terrorist activities. See Joel David, “Videodisc Piracy as an Instance of Resistance” in International journal of Diaspora & Cultural Criticism, vol. 11, no. 1 (January 2021), pp. 98–137, doi:10.15519/dcc.2021.01.11.1.98.

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They Call Her … Cleopatra Wong

Alternate Titles: Cleopatra Wong; Female Big Boss
Language: English
Year of Release: 1978
Director: Bobby A. Suarez [as George Richardson]
Screenwriter: Romeo N. Galang
(From a story by Bobby A. Suarez)
Producer: BAS Film Productions

Cast: Marrie Lee, George Estregan, Dante Varona, Johnny Wilson, Kerry Chandler, Franco Guerrero, Alex Pecate, Philip Gamboa, Danny Rojo, Bobby Greenwood, Jesse Lee, Joaquin Fajardo, Victor Romero, Joe Cunanan, Steve Havarro, Avel Morado, Romy Misa, Bernie Bernardo, Joe Canlas, Tony Castro, Mark Sherak, Clem Persons, Paul Mejares, Robert Mendez, Buddy Philipps, Don Gordon Bell, Robert Mallet, Skip Kriegel, Mike Youngblood, Bill James, John Stewart, Thunder Stuntmen, PIS Stuntmen

Instructed by Manila Interpol, Cleo hies off to Singapore to investigate the proliferation of fake currencies across the major ASEAN countries; she passes herself off as a counterfeiter so she could be picked up by a middleman. After subduing him and his goons, she’s then assigned to Hong Kong, to track the arrival of fake money in jars of strawberry jam. This leads her and her Interpol detectives to a convent in Baguio, where they attempt to uncover the mystery of why a religious order would engage in a global criminal operation.

Long appreciated more outside than within his home country, Bobby A. Suarez turned out to be just the right candidate to export for overseas film production. An ardent B-movie aficionado, familiar with the latest contrivances that popular entertainment had on offer, he lucked out with an assignment that enabled him, though on an apparently tight budget, to shoot in three countries with a large cast. The resulting poverty-row epic featured some of the wildest flights of imagination ever witnessed in a Filipino-directed action film, complemented by the wit and charm of Singaporean actress Marrie Lee, who was sharp enough to know that the entire enterprise shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but provides just the right amount of nimble-footed intensity to be able to foreground the work’s campy elements. Subsequent Suarez projects affirmed his belief in the transnational crime-control function of Interpol, but Cleopatra Wong marks the point right before his professional competence and influential outreach overpowered the several mésalliances that managed to proliferate in the present narrative.

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Red Roses for a Call Girl

Alternate Titles: The True Confession of Diana; Rose Tattoo
Language: English
Year of Release: 1988
Director & Screenwriter: Bobby A. Suarez
Producer: BAS Film Productions

Cast: Maria Isabel Lopez, Robert Marius, Werner Pochat, Julia Kent, Manfred Seipold, Amanda Amores, Pia Moran, Arnold Mendoza, Vangie Labalan, Don Gordon Bell, Werner Pochath, Nigel Hogge, Vic Santos, Mike Cohen, Joseph Zucchero

In Germany, a streetwalker named Marian gets abducted because she hasn’t been able to repay the money she owes her pimp, Ringo. The same woman, who now calls herself Barbara, reappears at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and makes the acquaintance of Klaus Timberg, who arrives because his profligate son, Peter, is given over to drag racing and nightlife. Klaus secretly hires a local sex worker, Diana, to induce his son to fall in love. As it turns out, Diana’s procurer is Ringo, who relocated to evade criminal prosecution in Germany. When Barbara, via Klaus, learns about this, she attempts to seek vengeance; Klaus’s predicament gets even more complicated when Peter discovers that Diana is really a sex professional.

The first notable element in Red Roses for a Call Girl is how it departs from the usual war-set or futuristic action (and even horror) material that foreign coproductions insisted on when they selected the Philippines as location for their film investment, in the wake of the initial success of the Marcos-era Manila International Film Festival. Opting for a loose reworking of La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils, Bobby A. Suarez instead devised a low-budget drama that nevertheless expands on the original’s themes of exploitation, familial bonds, and cross-cultural romance. The far-from-ideal production values and performances (excepting the native talents, unsurprisingly) accrue their own level of charm, the way that Third World ventures occasionally succeed in doing, in contrast with the Hollywoodish aspirations of the typical local productions of the period.

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Hubad na Pangarap

English Translation: Naked Ambition
Year of Release: 1987
Director: Abbo Q. dela Cruz
Screenwriter: Armando Lao
Producer: Golden Pearl Production

Cast: Michael de Mesa, Julio Diaz, Anna Marie Gutierrez, Lola, Vangie Labalan, Archi Adamos, Dante Castro, Chris Daluz, Tony Angeles, Tony Martinez, Stella Strada II, Jesse dela Paz, Lina Anota, Dick Morados

Miguel arrives at his rural rest house with several of his swinger friends, including a good-time girl with whom he hooks up. When his volatile girlfriend Cindy arrives, she throws a fit and drives all the visitors away, allowing Miguel to appease her by making out with her. All by themselves, they turn their attention to the place’s caretakers, Nelia and Ador, a poor but attractive couple engaged to each other. Miguel and Ador are childhood chums, but Miguel’s interest in Nelia starts to strain their friendship. Cindy’s exploitative regard toward Ador meanwhile leads to a bloody resolution in which the police are forced to intervene.

Abbo Q. dela Cruz’s debut film, Misteryo sa Tuwa (Joyful Mystery, 1984), was a film maudit that will always be worth at least one viewing, but that will probably be defensible as strictly a late-era Cold War masterpiece—patriarchal, myopic, and desperate. It was so overblown that it came close to shutting down the film production division of the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, which nevertheless came up with one last debut piece, Pio de Castro III’s Soltero (Bachelor, 1984), a film that replicated its shortcomings, albeit on a decidedly more intimate scale. Dela Cruz had better timing with his sophomore project, written by one of the winners of the next batch’s scriptwriting contest (which were never produced because of the preceding year’s follies). The Misteryo sa Tuwa connection provides the first step in comprehending the offbeat properties of Hubad na Pangarap: its misanthropy is unmistakeable, but this time more carefully skewed against its privileged characters, so that its ineluctable misogyny is favorably contrasted with its masculine characters’ meanness or feeble-mindedness. The libertarian spell occasioned by ECP-screened entries also fostered the busting of the final Catholic taboo against displaying the male form, so HnP enables a more-than-game Julio Diaz to cocktease not just his onscreen female master but an unsuspecting general audience as well. More productively, the film can be regarded as the middle entry in a trilogy scripted by Armando Lao, bookended by William Pascual’s Takaw Tukso (Constant Craving, 1986) and Chito S. Roño’s Itanong Mo sa Buwan (Moon Child, 1987), depicting increasing narrative complexity where working-class masculinities are confronted with and confounded by the well-laid schemes of the femme fatale.

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Sarong Banggi

English Title: One Night
Additional Language: Bikol
Year of Release: 2005
Director & Screenwriter: Emmanuel Dela Cruz
Producers: Cinemalaya Foundation, UFO Pictures, Cutting Edge Productions

Cast: Jaclyn Jose, Angelo Ilagan, Greg Rodriguez III, Alchris Galura, Miguel Iñigo Guño, Jam Rodriguez, Miguel V. Fabie III, Tanya Guerrero, Ronald Diama, Ester Reyes, Josephine M. Abelgas, Victor Cusi, Roger Macusi, Cesar P. dela Cruz, Jean dela Cruz, Mica Torre, C.J. dela Cruz, Rose Beltran, Monster Jimenez, Mario Cornejo, Josel Garlitos, Marlon Despues, Jing Villaruel, Ariel Carullo, Lorena Landicho, Lilia Villena

On the eve of his birthday, Nyoy is brought by his friends to the vicinity of Manila’s red-light district. They made an arrangement with Jaclyn so that Nyoy can have his first carnal experience. When they see her from a distance, they’re realize that she’s older than she claims to be so they decide to ignore her and proceed to a bar where they pick up a younger girl to pair with Nyoy. The girl however prefers a more exciting partner, so she allows herself to be picked up by another man in a convenience store. When Nyoy realizes he’s been abandoned by everyone, he returns to the open-air restaurant where Jaclyn sits by herself and invites him to join her.

Essentially a two-hander once Nyoy and (the reflexively named) Jaclyn start their interaction, Sarong Banggi attains a rare look at awkward intimacy that evolves into a harsh, deromanticized glimpse of the inner life of a fallen woman. Key to its achievement is Jaclyn Jose’s ruthless attack, allowing the once-hopeful but now regret-ridden character to take over without any hint of the performer perfecting her craft—which paradoxically makes perfection possible. By underlining some of her lines with contrapuntal behavior, she enables the narrative to reach places without requiring expository explanation. A plot twist that would have defeated lesser artists becomes a marvel of multistratified delivery: does she cry from disappointment, joy, horror, or self-pity? The composure that she forces herself to assume afterward similarly raises questions that she wisely avoids opting to answer. Aware of how exceptional this approach to character is in local cinema, Emmanuel Dela Cruz requires Angelo Ilagan, Jose’s scene partner, to maintain sympathetic naïveté throughout, while packaging the presentation in expressionist flourishes that serve to contrast with the depths of the abyss that Jose fearlessly plunges into.

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Sol Searching

Year of Release: 2018
Director: Roman Perez Jr.
Screenwriters: Roman Perez Jr. & Norman Boquiren
Producer: Universal Harvester

Cast: Pokwang, Joey Marquez, Gilleth Sandico, JM Salvado, Conrado, Raffy Tejada, Raul Morit, LotLot Bustamante, Mayen Estañero, Troy Aquino, Francis Magundayao, Jelson Bay, Chokoleit, Lee O’Brian, Paulo Rodriguez, Sue Prado, Hector Macaso, Chad Kinis, DJ Maki Rena, DonJake Consuega, Vic Romano, Sky Labastilla

Elementary school teacher Sol collapses after swilling liquor on the job and stressing herself with the students’ usual infractions, but fails to recover. Her colleague and best friend Lorelai makes it her mission to ensure that Sol gets an extended wake, where her long-missing husband is expected to show up, followed by a decent burial. Unfortunately Sol is a non-entity in their small town, her family property grabbed by influential claimants, whom she in turn antagonized by agitating for farmers’ welfare. Initially only Bugoy, the student whom she saved from parental abuse, assists Lorelai, but eventually the other players in the school and town hall come around to help solve Lorelai’s predicament while ensuring that their personal agendas can also be pursued.

An entry that’s guaranteed to surprise close observers of contemporary Philippine cinema, since it left no traces behind save for a popularity prize at a now-defunct film festival and the usual positive notices automatically bestowed on anything that spells “indie production.” One possible clue as to the eventual critical dereliction visited on it lies in its throwback properties: its crude surface is reminiscent of celluloid-era hack work, while its thematic preoccupation with localized developmental issues creates disturbing associations with early martial-law media policy during the regime of the elder Ferdinand Marcos. Yet the achievement of Sol Searching lies in the way in which it subverts developmentalist requisites while deploying stouthearted wit and humor, in delineating a narrative that would be recognized as tragic in any context. The creative tension generated by the material encourages broad delivery from a cast that, large as it already is, increasingly proliferates toward the end; yet these risk-taking touches are substantiated by further forays into rewarding twists and revelations. A forward-looking throwback then, as good as it’s possible to get.

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Halaw

Alternate Title: Ways of the Sea
Additional Languages: Cebuano, Tausug, Zamboangueño Chavacano
Year of Release: 2010
Director & Screenwriter: Sheron R. Dayoc
Producers: Cinemalaya Foundation & Los Peliculas Linterna Studio

Cast: John Arcilla, Maria Isabel Lopez, Arnalyn Ismael, Ross-Ann Dalkis, Aljimar Hajilol, Rodaine Avalie, Hadja Nursiya Darangina, Edgardo Sumicad Jr., Randy Amodia, Hadji Amman Sahi, Nasri Tawasil, Anelyn Carino, Justies Love Matchon, Reden Silven, Fharwis Amil, Joel Bustamante, Maimuna Mutos

Hernand encounters a whole set of difficulties in organizing his latest attempt to transport Philippine natives illegally to Malaysia on a motorized outrigger boat, via the southern backdoor. Some of the young women he recruited to work as entertainers got cold feet and backed out, while Khalil, who’s in charge of one of their stopovers, wants to collect on a loan he lent out earlier. Mercedes, a veteran hospitality worker, joins their group and provides assurance and confidence to some of the understandably anxious women. Their passage through the Malaysian area of responsibility is fraught with danger, with their prospective country’s coast guard on the alert for their type of intrusion.

The reason why Halaw endures over the passage of time has to do with the several balancing acts it executes in delineating its passengers’ sea trip (in contrast with the road trips of New American Cinema); since there can only be pitifully few possible conclusions at the end, none of them worth accepting, the journey becomes the whole point of the narrative. The collection of passengers is distinguished by social gaps that each one tries to overcome, as casually and painlessly as possible, though this turns out to be easy only for the most privileged among them. At the head of their group are two Manila-bred Tagalog-speaking migrants (played by the “name” members of the cast): Hernand has his hands full ensuring that everyone gets on board, while Mercedes uses wilier ways to persuade the understandably reluctant female recruits. At the other extreme is a prepubescent girl, Daying, identified by the others as a Badjao native; she may be the only character who does not speak her native tongue, since no one else would understand her—but she also literally upstages everyone by performing the celebrated Pangalay dance. These rounds of simple, lighthearted distractions, including exchanges of gossip, jokes, and beauty tips, will be recognizable to any native confronted by the looming prospect of overseas alienation and danger. Most of the action increasingly takes place in the dark, since the group has to travel by night through pre-electrified islands. The film provides a visual counterpart to forestall the anguish that inevitably awaits, by enabling us to occasionally glimpse natural scapes of quiet beauty, with none more ravishing than the very destination that marks their transformation from citizens to illegal entities.

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