It seemed the local film industry is raging light years ahead into another sterling age with the enthralling roster of movies being released. Then 'Ang Larawan' is unleashed like a blind cerberus -- it was on fire but lost in its music tracks. With that, the Philippine cinema's outstanding run comes to a grinding halt...at least for the moment.
"Ang Larawan" had firepower loaded as it garnered hype before it is released. Upon its opening sequence, the movie is extinguished. Joana Ampil is superb in her role as the singing yet brooding sister-slash-keeper of the house. She immediately plants her roots and sprouts the ambience for "Ang Larawan" -- classic live singing in fading colors as her facial expressions paints her authentic emotions into the screen. The overly long song-dialogue, however, is band aid to a knife wound – not much of a necessity.
Mostly set inside the lead characters’ house, the movie is an allegory for the family’s once flowery life yet now lives the danger of breaking apart. Still, director Loy Arcenas is a an ace lensman, capturing melodrama while stirring hope in the voices of the crooning cast. While it does not boast a carnival long-shot galore, the film features cuts inside sequences so the characters could maneuver their tunes and pick their spots inside the frame.
Whilst adapted from a play by National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin, ‘Ang Larawan’ certainly is not meant for a theater-esque helming on the screen. A play can be transformed into film without it essentially becoming a musical. Yet the movie is painstakingly urged into such, with Peping, Paula (a fictionalized Rachel Alejandro), Tony (Paulo Avelino), and the rest of the cast singing conversations as the magnificent screenplay spirals to a flat note. ‘Ang Larawan’ could have benefitted in occasional song bursts, though the whole singing-the-dialogue fiasco killed the fire of the film before Paula could even have the chance to do the same to the eponymous portrait.
Call it a landmark, nevertheless, this cinematic piece conjures a promising epic. In what appears to be divine intervention late into the picture, the grand reveal failed to fan the smoke of its exhausted blast radius. Even so, with a considerably crest budget it could have produced an actual decent portrait which was earnestly envied in the story.
The saving grace is Ryan Cayabyab’s sumptuous music. Despite the portrait, the maestro’s fine scoring paints a more vivid experience – such that music becomes cinema, and seeing the film be enveloped in its musical score is the grandeur that the Filipino society deserves. It is Cayabyab’s latest opus, his classical style breezing with a thunderous climax of restoring a picture of a family re-tethered. "Ang Larawan" succeeds in delivering pure joy through eargasm. Here is a portrait meant to be listened because it sure sang depths that even its visuals could not carry onto surface.
Director: Loy Arcenas
*Trailer ©Sine Pelikula; YouTube.com
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