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Director and screenwriter Rafael Manuel definitely knows how to compose a shot. His debut feature film, Filipiñana is gorgeous to look at. It creates striking images that highlight the social inequality in our country through the symbolic film’s setting of an elite, members-only country club and golf course while simultaneously displaying a keen sense of the absurd. Shot alongside cinematographer Xenia Patricia, the film takes us on a journey into the ins-and-outs of the country club: which is no doubt an unmistakable metaphor for our nation’s struggle with class division and exploitation.

But other than its visual flair, Filipiñana seems to lack urgency as its narrative meanders through its bare plot, building up toward a climax that leaves the audience with no real catharsis or release.

Its 100-minute running time is surprising because experiencing this movie feels as long as a Lav Diaz film with its static camera and penchant for silences. Yet when Diaz does this slow-burn approach, he infuses these long drawn-out shots with so much palpable pathos, anger, and rage. Whereas Manuel feels content with giving us just snapshots but keeping us at a distance.

Filipiñana follows Isabel (Jorrybell Agoto), a newly hired caddie at an exclusive country club and golf course. As she learns the ropes of the job – hunting down lost golf balls, teeing them up for the club’s wealthy clientele, and performing other odd jobs – the film lays bare the stark disparity between her and the other tee girls and the elite patrons they serve.

For added contrast, the film also takes a moment to follow Clara (Carmen Castellanos), as she accompanies her uncle, Renato (Carlos Siguion-Reyna) around the course as he tries to convince her to come home from America and work in the country club with him. Yet while Isabel slowly wakes up to the harsh reality of the world, Clara shows no appetite for it, her eyes already opened from the privilege of having left the country and seeing it with new eyes.

Manuel takes his time to build his world, to establish the workings of his metaphor. It’s scene after scene that creates a rich tapestry of images that shows the exploitation at work and the stark realities of class divide in full display. The film unfolds almost like a slice of life, except each successive scene exposes fresh cracks in the shiny, manicured veneer of this world breaking.

By all intents and purposes, I should love this movie, for what it says about our social structures and for its exercise of restraint. Yet the film embraces its arthouse aesthetic that the very world that I’m living in, a reality I am deeply cognizant of, feels strange and distant to me. Manuel takes his cues from that global indie playbook where the camera remains static and when people speak, they deliver their dialogue with deliberate slowness, as if every single word is precious, which makes it feel scripted, unnatural.

Take the scenes where the tee girls take their breaks, lying in clumps to escape the oppressive heat. Not a singled person gossips, complains, or speaks about the world. Manuel’s world leans so heavily into formalism that while I can see the visual markers of my country and its current socio-political state, I don’t see its soul playing out in the movie.

It’s very well-executed but it feels like a foreign approach telling a local story. That raw energy, that visceral struggle that I relate to with the Filipino experience has been smoothened over by a European arthouse tempo that feels out of touch with its subject matter. Seeing the reviews of Wester critics tells me that it worked, they love it. High marks and praise from critics on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet with a story so in touch with the issues of the country, I was hoping to see that Filipino fire inside these characters, in the unfolding of the narrative. 

My Rating: 2.5 Stars

Experience the striking visuals and quiet tension of Filipiñana on the big screen. A visually stunning debut that sparks necessary debate, form your own verdict on Filipiñana: now showing in cinemas nationwide. Get showtimes here.