Movie No. 39 (2015): TAKLUB
Taklub (2015)
Director: Brillante Mendoza
Cast: Nora Aunor, Julio Diaz, Lou Veloso
Taklub paints a portrait of what remains of a town that was ravaged by Typhoon Yoland (Haiyan). The narrative the lives (or what seems to be just existence) of four characters who are all living victims strongest and most disastrous typhoon that ever landed in the Philippines (and the world). We see them do their daily businesses, hoping against hope of finding their (still) lost relatives and re-building their lives, while facing some random challenges that will either break them or make them numb. The film succeeds in being a character study. It doesn't preach. It doesn't blame. It just tells a story - the story of hope and losing it.
Director: Brillante Mendoza
Cast: Nora Aunor, Julio Diaz, Lou Veloso
Opening film, Cinemalaya XI (2015).
Taklub paints a portrait of what remains of a town that was ravaged by Typhoon Yoland (Haiyan). The narrative the lives (or what seems to be just existence) of four characters who are all living victims strongest and most disastrous typhoon that ever landed in the Philippines (and the world). We see them do their daily businesses, hoping against hope of finding their (still) lost relatives and re-building their lives, while facing some random challenges that will either break them or make them numb. The film succeeds in being a character study. It doesn't preach. It doesn't blame. It just tells a story - the story of hope and losing it.
Nora Aunor, Julio Diaz, and Lou Veloso gave wonderful performances. Julio Diaz (as Larry) walking away after giving up the wooden cross we see him carry occasionally is a cinematic achievement. Lou Veloso's wishing that the sea would swallow him is jaw-dropping. But it's Nora Aunor's ubiquity that makes every frame look perfect and paint a thousand words. She's just in most scenes, where she doesn't even speak or move, that make the narrative move forward and make some points. There's this scene where she's shown walking away from the camera, and we feel how she feels as we see it in the way she walks with a heavy pace and in the manner her shoulders falls and rises.
And that ending is hard to chew. I was holding back tears.
Rating: 4.0/4.0
Date seen: August 7, 2015
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