Ang Pamana

Yesterday Sybil and I went to watch The Inheritance: Ang Pamana by Fil-Canadian director Romeo Candida at the Winnipeg Film Festival. The film is actually 165 minutes long (the website says it runs for 65 min) and is one of the festival's feature films. We arrived quite early and were the first ones to enter the theatre. Halata bang excited? Haha!

The movie marks the first appearance of a Filipino film in the Winnipeg Film Festival.

SYNOPSIS:

When the De Jesus Family gets word in Canada that their family Matriarch, Lola (Grandma) Nena has died in the Philippines, Johnny and his sister Anna are put in charge of representing their parents in Manila for the reading of the will.

Upon arrival in Manila, Johnny meets to his cousin Vanessa, a junior socialite who shares Johnny's taste for trouble. At the reading of the will, the three grandchildren of Lola Nena are awarded the deed to the family farm in rural Bulacan.

The 19-hectare property, miles away from the comforts of the modern world, is vast and lush, but things are anything but placid in this provincial landscape - supernatural forces are at work on the land and the crazy stories Johnny's Lola told him in his childhood are real. Are there truly duwendes cursing them?

The MOVIE

I think the strongest characteristic of the movie is the visuals. The shots are beautiful, the cinematography is superb. The locations they chose suited the story well. Lola Nena's ancestral house is indeed eerie and the farm is, well, a farm with huge, scary trees. I also like the way they showed the supernaturals. There are only a few glimpses of the kapre, the voices of the duwendes, and a few minutes of the manananggal in action. There are less prosthetics, less blood in this movie than the average Filipino horror film. Even when one of the characters died, the audience only saw a bloody hand - no actual scene of the death, no screams. However, this technique also worked against the movie as I will discuss later.

The story, on the other hand, is simple and almost typical. What I like about it though is that it isn't "preachy" about being Filipino and being Canadian. Johnny's character has doubts and questions about the folklore but those are not linked to the fact that he is raised abroad. The bad part? There is no solid conflict that the main character has to solve. The big secret of the story does not even concern him. Johnny has personal issues but the weight of it is almost the same as any of the other characters'.

Being a horror/thriller film, I suppose that the primary aim of the movie is to frighten the audience but I think it failed to truly give THE scare. There are some parts that surprised/scared me like Lola Nena's ghost appearing everywhere but that's about it. Like I said above, I actually like the subtleness of the way they showed the scary forces but I think horror movie fanatics would be disappointed. It lacks the scary factor. It is not the kind of movie that will haunt the audience even after they left the movie house and for that, I think, it came short.

The CAST

Sybil and I are quite surprised for most of the cast members are veterans when it comes to acting - not to mention being active in the indie film circuit. Jaclyn Jose, Tirso Cruz III, Alan Paule, Nonie Buencamino, Susan Africa, and Angel Aquino are some of the artists who appeared in the movie. Most of them only have bit parts but they still delivered well as expected.

Darrel Gamotin, who played Johnny, is also good for a relatively new actor.

Point-by-point

• Nice visuals
• Good cast

• Not for Horror fans
• Weak story

Personally...

I like the movie because I am not a fan of Horror movies and I am a sucker for great cinematography and nice visuals. 3 STARS out of 5