Cinemalaya 6 - Day 2

Saturday, 10 July 2010

I watched four films today. Overall I was satisfied with what I saw. I rate such films as follows:

HALAW (Dir. Sheron Dayoc) - New Breed

The film centers on an illiterate Badjao and his 9-year old daughter as they illegally cross the border of the Philippines and Malaysia through the southern backdoor.

Rating: 3.5/4.0

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TWO FUNERALS (Dir. Gil Portes) - Directors Showcase

After a horrific collision between a passenger bus and an 18-wheeler truck in Nueva Ecija claimed two dozen casualties, two families await the arrival of their dead. Along the way, details emerge about the disparate lives led by two people whose bodies were unwittingly switched.

Rating: 3.5/4.0

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LIMBUNAN (Dir. Gutierrez Mangansakan II) - New Breed

The film glimpses into the life of bride-to-be as she is kept from public view prior to the wedding in her private quarters (limbunan). The film captures the ritual motions of the women in a family preparing for the wedding of seventeen-year-old Ayesah who is bethrotted to a man she barely knows.

Rating: 3.0/4.0

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SIGWA (Dir. Joel Lamangan) - Directors Showcase

The film spans 40 years of Philippines social unrest. The story is initially told by Dolly, a Fil-Am and junior correspondent of a US magazine, who was sent to the Philippines in 1970 to do a story on student activism in Manila. The film, being a composite of stories of Dolly and each one of her former activist collective, is revealed fragment by fragment, as she surprises them by her unannounced presence.

Rating: 2.0/4.0

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By the way, my rating for the opening film, GANAP NA BABAE, is 1.0/4.0.