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Thursday, December 30, 2004
Can you say COMMERCIAL? I can't believe this was the most-awarded film. Or, I can, because I'm now assuming that all the other films must've really sucked. Granted, the story of this movie was pretty good, and so was the screenplay--despite the lack of build up on the characters and the supposed turning points of the plot. There were several genuinely funny parts, and the thoughts and dialogue of the characters made a lot of sense.
It was the unpredictability of the twists in this film that stood out, in my opinion. It was a good thing because, well, who doesn't like unexpected twists? But a bad thing too, because they were almost too unpredictable, that you'd wonder where they came from.
I guess it was impressive that this time, despite the occurence of death, the situation of the characters didn't get any easier, or the outcome of the story still wasn't the usual ending when somebody dies. But I really didn't like it that Paul (Jay Manalo), became somewhat of a martyr towards the end of the movie, and Michael (Christoper De Leon), who was the real martyr at the  beginning of the film, was portrayed to be somewhat selfish (giving Lilia an ultimatum). Luckily, I don't have any complaints on Lilia (Vilma Santos), except that she still chose Paul in the end, even when fate made it easy for her to choose when Paul got killed.
Maybe I just really have somewhat of a soft spot for people on the losing end. I mean, it really wasn't Mike's fault that he got separated from Lilia anyway. He had to hide to save all their lives. Paul's the one who did something bad--he tricked Lilia into thinking Michael didn't love her anymore so he could marry her himself. I don't know why some people don't agree with me, but in my book, that's pretty sleazy, and if she leaves him later on, despite their being married, I wouldn't be surprised. I'd even think he deserved it. Sometimes, you just can't force someone to love you, and doing things like that--lying and scheming (against his best friend, who practically gave his life up for them, I might add), just makes things worse.
Okay, so the choice of staying with her husband was definitely better for the children. But I don't know, somehow I got so convinced by one of Michael's speeches when he said that Lilia should think about what she wants, and for once do something for herself.
Anyway, the plot of this movie kind of reminds me of the story of 'The Notebook', except this is more complicated, and believe it or not, I kind of like this story better. It's a good story anyway, so maybe it does deserve it's 'Best Film' award. But still, I say it's so commercial because really, at what point did the characters have to be Chinese in order for the story to flow the way it did? The story could apply to anyone, it's so obvious they just wanted to make money that's why they made it a 'Mano Po' film. I don't think that scheme of theirs worked as well as they'd thought it would though, because the last I heard, Enteng Kabisote was no.1 in the box office. Not that that's surprising.
Posted at 11:11 pm by miriyammqx
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