It’s very rare for me to really get intrigued by a movie that was made in the Philippines. The last one that grabbed my attention was Saving Sally, a movie made just under a decade ago. Even though, just like my partner, I am a Filipino myself, I just can’t bare how trite they usually are. But once in a while, we do actually make a movie that looks really distinct. Saving Sally was one of those movies as it blended animation and creative visuals into the story. Well, I will have to say the most recent film, Filipinana, fits the visually creative bill.

Filipinana grabbed my attention because of the trailer. The cinematography looks like Rafael Manuel, who wrote and directed the movie, wanted to mimic Wes Anderson‘s style. And Wes Anderson definitely has a really visually stunning way of framing his shots. So, I wanted to see if the people behind Filipinana can actually pull it off.

By the way, as the film has only been seen by more of the “artsy” festivals like Sundance and only in a limited number of screens and, well, it can be considered a rather “artsy” film, Filipinana is definitely not a mainstream movie everyone is going to be rushing out to see. I’m assuming a lot of people, even here in the Philippines, will be giving this a pass. So, I will be making this a SPOILER FREE review. It may gain some more traction if or when it hits streaming sites. That way, when it does and someone wants to see a review of Filipinana, this will still be safe to read.

Filipinana generally focuses on two people. First is a young girl named Isabel. Isabel just moved to Manila to work as a “tee girl” at a very exclusive country club amidst an intense heat wave affecting the Philippines. She becomes rather entranced by Dr. Palanca, the president of the club, but she has no idea why. The second is Clara, a Filipino girl who grew up in the United States but her uncle wants her to move to Manila to help manage his business. But she does feel disturbed at at how the club patrons and upper management look down on the staff.

Even just by the description on the two main characters, let me give you a guess what Filipinana is all about. If you guessed it’s all about class inequality, you don’t get a prize because, yeah, it is that obvious. Now, just because something is obvious that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be bad. But here, yeah, it kinda is. I get it, okay? It takes that point and hits you over the head with it over and over and over again. Oh, there are a few metaphors scattered around here and there and those I appreciated. And I do appreciate the two twists for both Isabel and Clara’s stories. I also have to commend how you actually have to sit through the credits to get a more haunting ending. That was a nice touch to show how people will tend to leave when the credits roll because the people who made the film are “disposable” so there’s no need to see who they are. But getting to the ending can be a slog as the more heavy handed moments just came on too strong and too often.

I do have to talk about the cinematography, specifically how the shots are framed and they are generally gorgeous. As this is Rafael Manuel’s first full-length feature, I don’t think I’ve seen any of his previous works. I do see in his IMDB he’s done some short films but, like most short films, I’ve never watched any of them. So, I’m just going on this and I will say he does have a good eye for catching things on the screen. He uses a lot of long steady shots for his scenes and the camera is placed in such a way that things looks visually interesting but still captures a lot of detail. It can feel extraneous and indulgent at times but I feel that’s kind of the point. After all, the message of the movie is how overindulgent the upper class are, right?

While I do praise Rafael Manuel’s cinematography, I to take issue with his overall directing. I know these type of movies are supposed to be a slow burn. But Filipinana takes that concept and overuses it. Some scenes feel like they take too much time and, while what’s on the screen does look beautiful, any amount of beauty becomes stale if you stare at it for too long. This gets really worse as the film wears on because it starts to feel like he’s padding the story to fill in Filipinana’s 140-minute runtime.

It also seems like the director instructed the actors to leaves really long gaps when talking to each other and that makes things feel really unnatural and awkward. All of the low-level employees of the country club talk in this weird monotone and, in retrospect, that kind of makes sense because of their conformity to their status and situation, like the life has been drained out of them. I can understand the artistic choice behind it but I do think this affects a lot of the performances in Filipinana.

Technically, the main star is Jorrybell Agoto, who plays Isabel. She gets the most screentime and, unfortunately, I can’t really judge if she’s doing a really good performance because, like I said, she delivers most of her lines in that weird monotone. It’s hard to gauge if she’s really giving it her all if she’s told to hold back. Jorrybell Agoto is given a extremely brief breakthrough but it happens at the very end and I don’t think that’s enough for me to really give a fair judgement on how overall acting. I will say Carmen Casellanos does a better job because she is allowed to show off some more range as part of the upper class and, as such, doesn’t have to use the weird monotone and is allowed to emote more.

Overall, it’s hard for me to really recommend Filipinana. There is some good stuff here a lot of it is overshadowed by how the theme of class unfairness is laid on too thick. I can’t really say if Rafael Manuel is the Philippine version of Wes Anderson but I will say he did a fair job for his first full-length feature. I loved the more nuance storytelling bits and I can only imagine how good of a film he could make if he concentrated more on that. The movie is shot beautifully and there is definitely a solid artistic vision. If he can nail the pacing and trim some of his longer shots a bit, things wouldn’t have been too tiring to watch. If you’re interested in really slick visual framing of scenes, Filipinana is a good one to check out. If you’re able to wade through really slow burn films, you might want to give this a chance as well. But for most people, this will probably be too artsy for you.

Have you seen Filipinana? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments section below!