Cesar Apolinario's "Puntod"is 2010's very first Filipino movie offering! Having mentioned that, we expected a lot from this digital film. But whatever promise it has is foreshadowed by its English title - "Baby's Tomb" - which spells grief, grief and more grief! From the get-go, we had an inkling of how the story would end. The main character is a lachrymous mute named Baby (the pretty Barbie Forteza), who scavenges for scraps and left-overs to earn money.
Baby should eventually die. Otherwise, she wouldn't possess a tomb of her own, right? Right!
Spoilers!
But the narrative that leads to her demise is a convoluted headache of a story rife with heartaches (her mother was run over by a jeep; her father is blind; her well-meaning friend/teacher gets raped; her close friend gets shot) and abuses (her older sister is a bitch of a witch who shrieks to high heavens from dawn til sundown). Then from out of the blue, an awkwardly sequenced anti-climactic shootout ensues that came out of nowhere! But wait! It didn't end there. It couldn't - since Baby was still walking, and don't we expect her lying in a coffin - stiff and cold? Well, that eventually happened! Thank heavens.
Forteza is appealing, but she is mostly misdirected. Her scenes are a continuous montage of annoying cries and sobs and wails. I barely succeeded hanging on and staying put, and finishing the film that felt 3 hours long! No, sir, it's just 1 hour and 10 minutes or so, but it felt like a bundle of sacrifice. On the plus side: Mark Gil's Mang Delfin is engaging; and there's a crisp and luminous cinematography!
But the performance of note was turned in by Sheree. She was shrill and an annoying cardboard-cutout! I wanted her ejected out of "Puntod." She should star in another movie all her own - a movie that I won't be too lucky to pay P160 for! (Nilagnat po kasi ako eh!)
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