Nicco Manalo – Reverse Delay

‘Tayo sa Huling Buwan ng Taon’: a world of their own

Five years later, Sam and Isa find themselves pulled back into each other’s worlds.

Ang Kwento Nating Dalawa was the study of a relationship coming to its end, and had its characters in constant motion, through trains and taxis and the corridors of a college, echoing the transient, restless nature of their romance. The theme and motif evolves in the sequel, Tayo sa Huling Buwan ng Taon: Nestor Abrogena, the man behind both films, shares that in making the sequel, to convey its visual philosophy, he came up with three keywords—flight, orbit, and gravity. But these concepts do not merely manifest in the cinematography; they also enrich the essence of a film that could easily have been just another heartstring-puller.

(Tey Clamor, the director of photography, executes the vision well, exemplified in such shots as of Emmanuelle Vera where the camera hangs at an oblique angle, seemingly floating away from her, but also inducing a sense of vertigo. Also, whereas Ang Kwento Nating Dalawa had cold colors, Tayo sa Huling Buwan ng Taon is rendered in rich, worldly tones.)

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‘Gusto Kita with All My Hypothalamus’: delirious with desire

A mesmerizing ode to finding beauty in a dreary city.

Poets, fictionists, and all kinds of storytellers have a fixation for the city, or at least the idea of the city as a place. They pour a lot of thought into fleshing out this concept, to shape this imaginary community for their characters and purposes. Perhaps they find it wonderful how chaotic crowds of people find a measure of order when they walk down the same streets, just as seemingly disparate elements of stories seek structure to form a narrative. Perhaps they appreciate the density of districts, which radiate the sense that there is always a story to be found just around the corner, down the alleys, inside the buildings. There is always a lingering desire to find exciting things buried behind the dull details of life.

Gusto Kita with All My Hypothalamus is a captivating expression of this urge. The film, a love letter to Manila’s Avenida, weaves smoothly through the streets and spaces of the district as it tells the stories of four men linked together only by their common admiration for a woman named Aileen, who is played by Iana Bernardez in a stunning debut. She is introduced in the glorious opening scene, walking in slow-motion on the streets, to the music of Ikaw Pa Rin, a song one could easily imagine blaring from those karaoke units peddled at Raon.

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‘Ang Kwento Nating Dalawa’ (2015): watching the end of the line

Watching this story of a romance approaching the end of the line is like searching for the right person to love.

“Ang sabi mo walang hanggan, pero ‘eto tayo sa dulo.” (You said there would be no end, but here we are standing on the edge.)

If it were not for these words from the film’s original sound track, Walang Hanggan by Quest, it would have been easier to miss the purpose of Ang Kwento Nating Dalawa‘s restless settings. Throughout the film we see the characters in places of motion: sitting in a taxi or on the steps of a bridge, waiting on train platforms, walking between stations. Always in transit, Ang Kwento Nating Dalawa never lets us forget that the characters are in love, but that this love is transient. As much as they would want things to be different, the road will always come to an end, the train will always come to a stop.

The camera in this film has a similar obsession with buildings under construction: hinting at things not quite formed yet, things with perhaps no certainty of completion or fulfillment; without proper labels, like the love between Sam (Nicco Manalo) and Isa (Emmanuelle Vera).

We do not need to see the entire film to understand these metaphors for a relationship that has run its due course. They are apparent enough in the music video for Walang Hanggan that uses clips from the movie. Indeed, the resonant, heartbreaking song is responsible for much of the crowds that went to see the indie picture in its commercial release. The social media campaign for the film banked on the song’s hugot or heartbreaking ‘feels’ to draw the sawi, the romantically frustrated. People went to the theaters expecting to be brought to tears, maybe seeking legitimate comfort in a movie, or perhaps simply curious yet prepared for a good cry.

For marketing itself in this way, it is worthwhile to think of the film in explicit contrast to conventional Filipino romance movies.

Note: this review includes spoilers.

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