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.
'Sisterhood' sequel
Warner Bros. reunites America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel and Blake Lively in the teen drama, "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, 2," the sequel to the 2005 original.
In the sequel, the lifelong friends embark on separate paths for their first year of college and the summer beyond-but keeping in touch by sharing their experiences with honesty and humor.
Discovering their individual strengths, fears, talents and capacity to love through the choices they make, they value even more the bond they share and the power of their friendship.
Asian superstar in 'Speed Racer'
Recently cited as one of the Time magazine's most influential people, Korean pop sensation Rain makes his American film debut in the Wachowski brothers' high-octane "Speed Racer." Rain plays Taejo Togokahn, a top contender who teams up with Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) and the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox) to win a death-defying cross-country race known as the Crucible.
Feedback
From Alice R. Santillan of Iloilo City: "Your evaluation of Gabby Concepcion's comeback was interesting and analytical, but you shouldn't have glossed over the Sharon and KC 'connection.' It is this connection that some people don't like, because it would be better if he could make it on his own without stirring up old hurts."
