My Cactus Heart - Ephemeral Popcorn Romance

Sandy Macalintal (Maja Salvador) has long brushed off romance ever since her father has chosen to live a life away from their family. Sure, he would occasionally show up - a couple of times a year with his current girlfriend awkwardly tagging along. Sandy had to live with a mother (Rosanna Roces) who eternally pines for that day when her husband (Ricky Davao) would find his way back to the fold - where he belongs. Sandy is cautious. Though she entertains suitors, she would eventually nip these budding romances in the bud once they get too close for comfort. Might as well cut her impending and perceived loses before they harm her fragile heart, right?

Meanwhile, Carlo (Matteo Guidicelli) is gradually falling for his boss' daughter Sandy. He occasionally waits tables for a catering business - and moonlights as a singer for a band. He dreams for a lot of things: to visit the grave of her fallen mother (Pinky Amador) in Singapore and to earn a decent living; one that would approximate his worth in the eyes of Sandy who's upbeat and charming. In fact, she takes his breath away. Unfortunately for Carlo, Sandy's twice shy about romantic intimacy. She comes from left of center - and is even wary of her irrefutable attraction to the strapping lad. What's worse: Sandy is entertaining another suitor, Benedict (Xian Lim) who's a formidable competition. What becomes of Sandy and Carlo?



Director Enrico Santos comes up with a winsome formula reeking with frothy narrative embellishments. In fact, if you've seen the trailer alone, it would make you want to rush to the nearest cinema to watch it. The film has an adorable heroine who steals your heart even when she furtively denies affection: "No as in no" indeed! Moreover, it has a romantic consort brimming with asian-italian charm. Heck, even the third wheel's as delectable as a sophisticated version of tikoy and hopia and pansit. Xian Lim is a dashing milk curdler: he is tall, sexy, and looks at girls with earnest heed. The romantic broth couldn't be perfect, right?

But there's this quibble: remember the note for the anonymous soul mate that's meant to find its way back to you? If love was indeed such a fallacy, why rest your romantic faith on a carelessly placed note inside a guitar? Or inside a bottle? The idea feels incongruous to Sandy's apathetic ideas about relationship. If having ones heart broken turns you into a tumbleweed of disaster, then it's evident you don't deserve to be happy. No one deserves to get hurt, more especially if it's a deliberate or expedient strategem.

Maja Salvador is splendid like she's always been, her tongue in cheek rendition always uttered in exquisite comic cadence. Most everyone in the cast tries to duplicate her verve, but her leading men suffer in comparison. Beside Salvador, they appear lightweight... like eye candies - and cotton candy, lovely to gaze at, but they dissipate in the mouth within seconds, easily washing off in our gustatory senses forever.

"My Cactus Heart" is ephemeral pleasure. Everything feels part of an ingredient that, in the scheme of things, don't quite linger for long. Like chips, cotton candy or popcorn, you masticate on them - then you eventually forget the heady pleasures of partaking.


Darna and the art of checking out someone else's hygiene.

Sandy meets the overeager Benedict.


Maja Salvador: perfect


Matteo Guidicelli as Carlo


Xian Lim as Benedict. he is once again "introduced" in this film though he has appeared in Gil Portes' "Two Funerals". This gross overlook spells either ignorance (for not knowing) or arrogance (for not considering Xian's first film part of his resume).

Redemptive Spring in Alix's "Haruo" - Plus "Ulan" & "I See Everything"

As much as it insinuates “redemption”, spring is as deceptive as the little blooms that festively gather around in the season. Each one would eventually wither away.

A morbid turn of events brings Haruo (Jacky Woo) to the squalor of Manila. A prized asset of the feared Yakuza in Tokyo, Haruo, aka Tadano Hayashi, escapes the criminal syndicate with bountiful cash, a helpless Filipina bar girl (Nina Kodaka) – and tragic consequences. Now solitary, he has uprooted himself to the railside slums of the metropolis, wistfully fending for himself. Still hiding from his past, he rents out a small room, seemingly lost in the clutter of wandering souls desperate for survival. There, he spends his days anonymously roaming the congested streets selling food, and even giving them away for the hungry. But he mostly keeps to himself, even to the inquisitive Edna (Rosanna Roces), an aging bar girl with whom he occasionally shares his bed.

Other characters navigate Haruo’s surroundings: Aling Lydia (Perla Bautista), a cantankerous mute who lives her days rearing her grand children with heavy hands; Popoy (Junjun Quintana), a street hawker who peddles everything from fake Rolex watches and garments to longganisa; and Edna (Roces) who’s constantly anxious that the grown child she’s rearing will eventually leave her for his real mother. Yet Haruo keeps mum of his putrid past, and these desperate faces frame Haruo’s survival like a noose waiting to tighten around his neck.

One day, he meets the mysterious Michelle (Roxanne Barcelo) who, along with her cousin Charlie (Arnold Reyes), is cloaked by an air of paranoia. Are they running away from something? Despite Michelle’s veneer of detachment, Haruo is drawn like moth to a flame. It isn’t long until his harrowing past haunts him back. Will Michelle, like the Japanese spring, bring Haruo’s redemption?

With a bristling narrative and the calculated manipulations of its color palette, smartly doing away with those shaky handhelds, Adolf Alix, Jr.’s “Haruo (Springtime Man)” plays out like a blank canvas that gradually unravels right before your eyes, peeling veneers of its story in delectable stages of unrelenting tale, way until the full story is laid out like a masterpiece. Albert Banzon’s cinematography is a joy to behold, and the conscious selection of color scheme is nothing short of spectacular: while most of the background is muted to almost black and white, objects surrounding – and framing – each scene have been saturated into sumptuous hues. Several scenes jolt out like kinetic objects – as exemplified by a magical scene where a cart drives away from a rail track, the side rails frame the scene in red-orange hues. I was mesmerized!

SPOILERS

I do have a few quibbles about the film. When the Yakuza eventually finds Haruo, didn’t he ever consider that if he ignored their request (they want him back), they would harm Michelle? Why didn’t he exert the effort to protect her first before eventually declining their order? You couldn’t be so thoughtless as to allow another love one harmed again, could you? Furthermore, a few scenes that supposedly transpired in Tokyo looked inherently Manila. There’s also a little confusion in the timeline of flashbacks, though, on the most part, they worked.

Jacky Woo turns in an insightful performance rich with pathos and empathy. Roxanne Barcelo plays the damsel in distress with emotive charm and mystery, you do wonder why she isn’t getting the lead roles that she deserves! But this film should remedy such injustice. Rosanna Roces always lends a degree of realism to any film she appears in, thus watching Rosanna “suffer” anew was such joy. In fact, she was one of the reasons why, for a very short while, I became a teleserye junkie when Nora Aunor’s “Sa Ngalan ng Ina” was on TV. Perla Bautista romps off with a dichotomous character, at once sympathetic and loathsome. Nina Kodaka, who has uncanny semblance to the beautiful Barcelo, plays the Filipina bar girl who falls into Yakuza territory. Though she seems a tad tentative with her attack, it wasn’t perturbing. You just know she could fare better.

But the breakout performance comes from a relative unknown – Junjun Quintana who plays Popoy, the haggler who sells everything, even his soul in exchange for money. Quintana enveigles a charismatic presence radiating with charm, a graceful streetwise demeanor and cinematic allure reminiscent of the younger Coco Martin and Sid Lucero.

Alix’s “Haruo (Springtime Man)” is a compelling slowburn; a character study about evoking a degree of atonement that, to some people, never comes. Sometimes, the situations that surround people make for an imponderable road block.

Rosanna Roces


Roxanne Barcelo and Nina Kodaka


Nina Kodaka


Roxanne Barcelo


Junjun Quintana

STUDENT SHORT FILMS

Along with this full length feature, MMFF has decided to include student films from which 10 short films will be screened alongside the 4 "New Wave" (indie) full length features. We saw 2 student shorts: Michael Jainoran’s “I See Everything” (Southville International School) and Nikka Palma and John Wong’s “Ulan” (La Consolacion College and Pixel Art). To be fair, since these are scholastic efforts, I’ve decided to be nice and reserve our acidic tongue so as to inspire these young souls to work on their craft.

Jainoran’s “I See Everything” follows the watchful eye of a geek who perceives herself at the bottom of the “food chain” where it concerns the denizens of her class. These are the campus heartthrob, the sassy girl, the musician, the bully. On cursory glance, they follow the social strata as they’re perceived to be. But on closer look, their stories waver into the unforeseen. And the geek, by her own ministrations, bears the power to rise above the social ladder… with her sentient camcorder. The staging of scenes is a bit rough around the edges. The casting could have been better conceived. But there’s an unmistakable rankle of idea that could have soared had the narrative been fine tuned.

Palma and Wong’s “Ulan” is more technically polished. One night, Nikka leaves younger sister CJ on her own while the former attends to her social commitments. While she was away, CJ entertains herself watching television, playing piano, foraging through the only available food. That same night, the rains pummeled through the roof and Nikka failed to make it back home. In the wee hours of the night, CJ gets a strange call from her Uncle Alex. What’s become of Nikka? Filmed in sumptuous black and white, there is proficient generation of mood that helped create a workable narrative. Employing the narrative detour of Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense” further gives the story fictive heft though it’s weighed down by a lukewarm treatment of its concluding scene. Still, it’s a watchable fodder.

Sa Ngalan ng Ina - An Epic Drama Worthy of a Superstar

When Mayor Armando Deogracias (Bembol Roco) decided to seek higher office, he didn't bank on his ambition costing more than he expected. Incumbent Governor Pepe Ilustre (Christopher de Leon) and his minions weren't pleased. One fateful night, during a campaign sortie, a bomb was thrown at the stage where Armando and daughter Andrea (Nadine Samonte), who's running for Mayor, were making speech! Though Andrea was spared from the explosion, Armando wasn't so lucky. He was rushed to the hospital. When doting wife Elena (Nora Aunor) arrived by his side, he had expired.

The catastrophe threw the bustling town into a frenzy. Who plotted the dastardly deed? Before the dust settled on this political arena, the grapevine has pointed its finger at the Deogracia's political rivals, the Ilustres. Was the paraplegic governor responsible? Or was it a strategic device of the governor's wife, Lucia (Rosanna Roces) who's as beautiful as she's cunning?

This fortuitous turn of events turned the Deogracias household upside down. And as fate would have it, Elena, the reluctant, albeit unsuspecting widow is suddenly jostled into the tumultuous political platform. After all, aren't widows potent instigators of change? Despite her reservations, Elena is aware of the grave repercussions if she were to decline the position. And everyone else is on tenterhooks from the expeditious sway of events.

In 2002, ABS-CBN launched a great singer to stardom – Carol Banawa - for a teleserye called “Bituin”. She played Melody Sandoval, a singer who rose to fame despite the odds. But one salient detail in this “Pangarap na Bituin”-styled drama was the participation of an icon, a name that can never be omitted in the annals of Philippine Show Business – Superstar Nora Aunor!

But in the fracas of building up a star, the station myopically sidetracked the Superstar’s participation. She was relegated to second tier-territory. In fact, as the series went on, La Aunor’s character was reduced to a mere afterthought! And what a shame that was; an embarrassment of gargantuan proportions, for how can the Queen be relegated to a minor throne in favor of a newbie who, though talented, will never approximate the scope of grandeur and legacy that is Miss Nora Aunor? Roughly a year later, Ms. Aunor decided to pack it up and seek greener pasture elsewhere! In fact, she left with a broken back and a crashed ego, she thought she was done and over with!

But time has a way of mending iniquities. Directors Mario O'Hara and Jon Red's "Sa Ngalan ng Ina" is fixing the aberration. Nora Aunor is back in a panorama that befits her talent and stature. In ABC-5's miniseries, the story revolves around Elena and every character gravitates and orbits around her! It's taken time to finally field a vehicle that once again showcases La Aunor's enviable thespic facility.

Yes, those expressive eyes once again pull the ponderous punches, as when, in her grief, Aunor (as Elena) laments with her slain husband's 3 favorite "barongs". The framing of the scene is well conceived - she's seated on a bed beside her sister Pacita. There's a door on the foreground, adequately spotlighting a widow's grief! It was like watching an intimate act from a chamber play on stage! And why not? Director O'Hara is as much a famed theater director as he is a film megman. There are remnants of her Richard Merck-era grunts, but Ate Guy's emotionality is corporeal, earthy, and palpable as when she once appeared before a crowd, declaring to spiritually desperate people that there was no miracle after all! Walang himala indeed!

The series' supporting characters are nothing to scoff at: Eugene Domingo, who plays Pacita (Elena's younger sister) is a calming presence; a wonderment of sobriety in Elena's turbulent world; Rosanna Roces, as Lucia, is the perfect mischief-maker, the miscreant who'll stop at nothing to protect the interest of the Ilustres; Ian de Leon, playing the security officer of the Deogracias, is an ambiguous character when it's revealed that he shares Lucia's bed. And Christopher de Leon's Governor Pepe is a sketchy character; he's hard to read for now. We do know that Pepe and Elena once shared intimate moments.

Among the younger cast, Karel Marquez and Eula Caballero make the grade! Marquez, who plays Carmela Ilustre (Pepe and Lucia's only daughter), looks exceedingly beautiful, yet her comeliness never distracts from the dilemma that she's in, i.e. she's the girl friend of Elena's son Angelo (Edgar Allan Guzman, who plays a police officer). Their tale provides a Romeo and Juliet predicament. I'm not familiar with Caballero, but so far, she displays a sympathetic affect as Pacita's daughter. This, in itself, is a triumph considering the crowd of reliable veterans she's working with. Otherwise, it's easy to get lost in this privileged company!

Though Alwyn Uytingco, who plays the volatile Alfonso Deogracias (Armando Deogracia's son), is never awkward, his performance isn't as forthright as it should be, which is a shame since we expected a lot from him. I have a feeling he'll get into his usual competent groove as the narrative unravels in the coming episodes.

WEAK LINKS

The series isn't spared from weak performances, the most glaring would be the lovely Nadine Samonte, playing Armando's daughter Andrea, a lawyer who's running for mayoralty vacated by her father. Nadine figures in several highlights, constantly leering at her stepmother Elena (she's Armando's second wife). Nadine populates her performance with sneers and smirks, throwing her lines with utter disgust, yet they all end up perfunctory and one-dimensional. As eye-catching as she is, Nadine is a blank canvas devoid of real and insightful emotion. Her conversations with Elena (well, she's always talking down on her stepmom) come off vacuous, like a girl who's in a constant bad temper. Now that's a shame again, considering she's "consecrated" a sundry of highlights!

Didn't Samonte star in Rod Santiago's "The Sisters" prior to this series? That should have provided her with adequate experience, i.e. "dry run". In one scene, she trades barbs with Elena. She declared: "Tatlong gabi akong umiiyak para sa ama ko." Elena replied with: ""Di ko mabilang ang luhang galing sa puso." Despite the mawkish line that Aunor was made to deliver, she owned the silliness with stark earnestness, while Nadine's was not dissimilar to a child reciting a nursery rhyme! It was a painful scene to digest.

Another sore point is Raquel Villavicencio playing Vice Governor Dorinda Fernando. Now whoever gave her the illusion she could act should be burned at the stakes! Yes, we heard she won a major award from the recently concluded Cinemalaya festival (the same festival group that awarded a disputable supporting trophy for Jim Pebanco's abhorrent and absolutely dreadful turn in Lamangan's "Patikul"), but goodness gracious, Villavicencio is such a disgrace! Even when she's spouting a potentially powerful line like, "This is a politically motivated violence," it becomes such a mundane drivel with her! Moreover, when Villavicencio was made to deliver a speech on stage as she tries to persuade the crowd (that she should take over the governorship instead of inexperienced Elena), she appeared weakly sniveling and tentative, and curiously unconvincing. She bears no gravitas expected from a seasoned politician. How she became vice governor escapes me!

There's a certain carelessness in a few scenes, like when the bloodied mayor was rushed at the hospital. While emergency measures were being given to the fatally wounded politician, you would know something was amiss at the E.R. Now, here's a bleeding patient, with blood gushing on his shirt, but where's the intravenous fluid? You wouldn't wonder why the patient eventually expired. The incompetence of the medical staff is daunting! Don't tell me they don't have "dextrose" in that institution? Or was it a veterinary hospital the poor mayor was rushed to? LOL

TOP CALIBER

On the plus side, the production is top caliber. They commissioned Mr. Ryan Cayabyab to compose the theme song, a song that's melodically rich it cajoles the auditory senses. You never hear such soaring theme songs anymore, but soul-less covers ("Mahiwaga", "May Bukas Pa"). The song is beautifully sung by Basil Valdez whose rich lilting voice deserves to be heard again by a prime time crowd! Moreover, during the first episode, almost every scene had a propitious staging, most of them involving large crowds. The scenes have been briskly paced and mindfully staged like snippets from some epic masterpiece! Who can accuse them of scrimping production expenses? The atmosphere created therein concocts a distinct narrative macrocosm, making "Sa Ngalan ng Ina" a unique television experience worthy of our patronage.

I've always thought of TV5 as a refuge of 2nd-tier personalities who can't find employment elsewhere, and for a while, I knew I was right. After all, how can you think otherwise when they're fielding god-awful TV dramas like "Star Confessions" (I caught 3 horrible episodes). But with a class act like "Sa Ngalan ng Ina" providing a hopeful and inspiring gleam on TV land, there's no doubt TV-5 has joined the big leagues! That, my dear, is to our advantage!

Cheers to the one and only Superstar - Miss Nora Aunor!

Lucia


Alfonso


Andrea


Dorinda is as hammy as her alter-ego! She can't even give a believable campaign speech!