Senses Synergized

This year, Lady Luck provided me with enough time and resources to watch four Cinemalaya entries: Joseph Laban's Nuwebe, Adolf Alix's Porno, Cesar Evangelista's Amor Y Muerte and Jerrold Tarog's Sana Dati. Promise, no (overwhelming) spoilers this time (as much as possible).


First up, Sana Dati on a Tuesday night with people from the office. I'm no fan of romantic movies lest you give them a twist and Sana Dati gave one damn twist! Not your typical sappy love stories that Filipino mainstream romantic movies offer, Sana Dati shows how true love can never be replaced nor replicated but maybe, time can help you bury it and forget it. Cliché it may be, but the use of the blue doll shoes to signify Poe's love for her previous lover is so strong and has been utilized well in the film. That ending, too! HNNNNNNNNNNGH!

Since I arrived past midnight after watching Sana Dati, I have to pull an all-nighter so I won't be late for work the next day. Am proud to say that I pulled this one without caffeine in my system. Ok, maybe just a tiny bit with the iced tea I drowned myself with. And I still have to watch Amor Y Muerte that afternoon. With unmet physiological need that is sleep and conducive sleeping environment that is the Main Theater and some lines from the movie, I was headbanging if there were no boobs, butts, a snake eating rats and a murder or any adrenaline-pumping scenes which the movie sadly lacks. Maybe it's just because of my lack of sleep but the period film was able to send the message that it intends to show its audience. I just pity the guy next to me and behind me for having to endure my headbangs throughout the film. 

Saturday is one fun day for me! UBE with friends and two Cinemalaya entries! TWO! Dear Luck must have been hugging me the whole week to give me such an opportunity. Porno for lunch and boy was I slammed by the ending. A porn scene as its opening, another porn film the next scene and then you realize why it was titled that way. Then Alex Boy started seizing then became Alex Girl. Oh and Rosanna Roces and Yul Servo had sex at the start. Which really lost me? The sudden transition of the protagonist can be unearthed with a few digs but the connection of Servo-Roces sex scene is kept rather deep. Again, the ending. HNNNNNNNNNNNNNG!

After that face-slamming film, I was treated to a, well, a treat (?). Nuwebe discussed several issues. A little bit too many, if you ask me. There was animism and it's persistence to the modern times (beliefs on healers and nuno sa punso), then the poor delivery of health care services to the far-flung communities (misconceptions on menstruation and the rather long queue in the OPD [why an OPD instead of an emergency department, I do not know why]), incest which went alongside with sexual harassment issues in the clergy and, pre-marital sexual encounters and succeeding pregnancies leading to arranged marriages, prostitution to raise a family and the list goes on and on. They even pitched in a deranged child-mother burning their house down-ala-Orphan which I mentally reacted with a "Well that's too much". The movie can be likened to one stubborn thread that holds all of these concepts together in such a precarious balance, threatening to snap and letting these issues zip to different directions. The script for the child-mother interview was kinda off for me considering how the child actor did very well in internalizing the lines. Overall, a great movie.

After watching these four films, I have to rate Sana Dati among my favorites followed by Nuwebe then Porno and sadly capped by Amor Y Muerte. This season's Cinemalaya has indeed synergized my senses. To Cinemalaya 10 next year! To world-class Philippine cinema!