 |
 |
PLOT: A family is divided by love, hate and war in this epic set in the Philippines during the Japanese occupation. A modest boatman is in love with the village beauty, but so are a rich American businessman and a Japanese officer. Plenty of intrigue, vengeance and drama.
Those looking for their money's worth at the movies might consider The Call Of The River (Panaghoy sa suba), a sweeping epic set in the Philippines.
Whatever the cinematic equivalent of overeating might be, that's how you feel after viewing the film. It's huge. It's sumptuous. It's a three-hanky, melodrama, guilty pleasure.
Visually lovely and endlessly busy, The Call Of The River is set in a remote village in Central Visayas during the Japanese occupation. Duroy (Cesar Montano) is a modest boatman in love with the local beauty, Iset (Juliana Palermo), but the course of true love never did run smooth, and so forth.
For starters, Duroy's little brother is also in love with Iset. So is the mean-spirited but rich American employer in their area. Later, even the Japanese officer whose men invade the village falls for Iset.
On her side, Iset is attracted to Duroy, but she lives with an Auntie whose ideas of romance run more to finance. Auntie (Caridad Sanchez) wants Iset to marry the rich American. That would happen, too, but the war intervenes.
|
Duroy, meanwhile, has suffered the deaths of various family members. Now, with Japanese troops invading, Duroy and all the able-bodied men flee to the village. The women and children stay behind with the local priest and the nuns.
The Japanese officer in charge is a peaceful and fair man, but his soldiers are more bloodthirsty. Things get bad in the village, and once Iset understands that her father is helping the enemy, she flees to the mountains and joins Duroy and the men.
The Call Of The River unfolds like a really well-made soap opera, endlessly emotional and complicated. There are scenes of vengeance and battle and even hara-kiri, but the understated performances keep the picture from becoming overwrought.
There's a lot of the sweeping-epic going on around here -- the landscape is magnificent, the cinematography impressive. Life in the village is centred on the river of the title. One of the most beautiful sequences in the film is a funeral cortege of boats making its way along the river as mourners on both banks throw flowers into the water.
Historical setting aside, Panaghoy sa suba -- The Call Of The River -- is a love letter to the Phillipines and its people. The film is in Visayan, with English subtitles.
The Cinema Evaluation Board of the Film Development Council of the Philippines gave the film an important A rating for the Metro Manila Film Festival.
(This film is rated PG)