Ag seleng ako ig akeng lebayen y ang pelikulang "Ploning". Ako agbael sa Cuyo, pero tana beken, pero aka-pakun tana ren da duto.Si Judy Ann Santos ang bida.
Marake-rake ra agseleng. Exclusive gali ang showing sa SM Cenimas. Syempre, karakean nga ag-seleng mga Cuyonon, abaw, ang lilisang manda.. syempre alilipay nga akita ang Cuyo sa sinian.
Sa matud lamang ara ko masyadong naitindian ang istorya. Pero drama tana. Maansyano ang batang bida, si Digo, ag arte. Pati clear tana maglemeg. Ang mga artistang beken cuyonon, pag cuyonon andang dialogue indi ma-intindian mayad.
Ara ko naintindian ang kwento. "Dato bang si Digo bata ni Ploning?".. Opinion ko lang ha, medyo magulo ang pag-istorya. Magkaiba ngani ameng pagka-intindi akeng lebayen.
Akeng ing-i-expect, mapapakita kung pasamoro tinlo ang isla ang Cuyo, pati kung pasamuro ang pangabui sa isla. Andan ingpakita ang krus sa Aguado, ang simban sa lansangan, ang aga-panglato.. Pero ok ren da kung ara.
Matinlo anang mensahe. Mayad anang objective.. basipang maging proud manda kitang mga Cuyonon sa ateng kultura.
In a rating of 1-10, 10 being the highest, akeng rating sa pelikula - 6.
Viewfinder
ReplyDeleteArtistry is fine, but accessibility is key
By Nestor Torre
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:01:00 05/05/2008
MANILA, Philippines - There are many things to like about Dante Nico Garcia's first feature film, "Ploning": Its loving tribute to small-town life, folk tradition and timeless tenets; its textured characters, each with an affecting story to tell; its private locales; its actors' deeply-felt performances; and its shared insights about the different forms of love that bind people to each other.
All of these elements come to bear on the principal story of Ploning (Judy Ann Santos), a selfless woman who mourns a departed love but doesn't let her private grief prevent her from helping many others with their personal problems.
A boy she particularly dotes on assumes the story's organizing point of view. Ploning similarly loves him to bits-and she's stunned when, like her lost love, he, too, vanishes without a trace.
Everyone thinks he's drowned, but the movie has another thing coming, of a mysterious young man, who picks up the story's thread and ends up getting answers to questions that the movie audience also need to find out to make full sense of what they're watching.
This is where the film starts to fall short. While the answers are both affecting and illuminating, they are sometimes too private and recondite for viewers to fully relate to.
Another problem involves some verbalized, rather than dramatically enacted, developments. This even affects the key mystery about what really happened to Ploning's missing love, which is eventually revealed by a character in the film.
This "second hand" revelation is dramatically inert, and that's unfortunate, because the "secret" plays an important part in the movie's denouement.
The film's accessibility is further abridged by the filmmakers' decision to use the dialect spoken on the island of Cuyo, Palawan for around a third or more of the movie's dialogue. Subtitles are provided when needed, but the device distances the material from the generally Tagalog-speaking mainstream movie audiences.
No doubt about it, the use of dialect adds to the film's specificity and natural feel-sadly, however, its distancing effect partially negates that virtue.
But we must share that the film is viewable due to some fine performances turned in by Judy Ann, Tessie Tomas, Ces Quesada, Mylene Dizon and some non-actors cast in significant roles, especially Ploning's young ward. Another cast member, Gina Pareño, is an acclaimed thespian, but her performance here is too overwrought to be genuinely noteworthy.
Despite these and other low points, "Ploning" remains an eminently viewable production, with its virtues significantly compensating for its flaws. Now, if only its accessibility problems don't deter people from watching it, so the film can reach the wider audience it deserves.