Danny Zialcita – Reverse Delay

Change is inevitable, but some things are eternal—or at least, they reincarnate. In Danny Zialcita’s Karma, a film that premiered at the 7^th Metro Manila Film Festival in 1981 and was recently remastered by ABS-CBN Film Restoration, we see such old, past things as a Makati City with an unrecognizable skyline. There were no cellphones yet, and the characters depended on landline services. For audiences today, the movie offers glimpses at how much life has changed in recent decades—but it also suggests that some things are undying, like love and souls and poor customer service from telephone companies.

Karma opens with a scene of lovers meeting at a clandestine location, part romantic and part spooky. Guada (Leila Hermosa) and Enrico (Dante Rivero) have barely made their amorous overtures when Limbo (Ruel Vernal)—Guada’s husband—arrives and threatens to kill the adulterous pair. He points his gun at the unflinching Enrico who, because of either some mystic foresight or simple, tragic romanticism, says “Bala lang ‘yan, katawan lang ‘to.” Limbo makes good on his threat and shoots the two, before killing himself.

The title credits are flashed in the next sequence, over a montage of babies being born in a hospital, intercut with images of the dying lovers, strongly implying that Guada and Enrico’s souls have reincarnated. Limbo’s crime of passion apparently failed to send them with finality to heaven nor to hell, and not even to limbo.

Continue reading “‘Karma’ (Danny Zialcita, 1981): dying to love again”

Nagalit ang Buwan sa Haba ng Gabi (literally, the moon is mad for the night is too long) is one of the latest products of ABS-CBN’s rather important project of restoring old Filipino films. The 1983 movie by Danny Zialcita was digitally scanned, restored and remastered, and the result is a quality picture, now prepared to entertain a contemporary audience.

The fact of restoration provokes us to think of the film in two ways: on its own, as an isolated film product; or with regards to its age, as it is now effectively a historical record.

Entertaining, if questionable

Note: this section shares details of plot and other elements, or ‘spoilers’.

The most salient feature of Nagalit Ang Buwan is its overflowing plot. It is not necessarily a surplus of plot, because the length of the story and the degree of convolution is justified in the end. But the story, in its totality, is nevertheless too lengthy, perhaps demanding a little more than the average moviegoer’s endurance.

Fortunately, the movie is funny. A representative from the ABS-CBN restoration team remarked before the screening that this film will certainly be enjoyed by those who love memes. Indeed, Nagalit Ang Buwan is packed with so much wit and biting dialogue, that if social media had only existed in the 1980s, numerous lines from it would have doubtless gone viral.

Continue reading “Review: ‘Nagalit ang Buwan sa Haba ng Gabi’ (Danny Zialcita, 1983)”