That was an excellent one.

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I was excited to hear that Cesar Montano had decided to make a movie in the Cebuano language. (Not 'dialect' as most Filipinos will incorrectly refer to it as. As Cebuano and Tagalog are as mutually unintelligible as French and Spanish are to each other.) But I was greatly disappointed when i saw this movie. Being a Canadian, of Cebuano parents, I was optimistic about the revival of the Visayan film industry when I heard about this film. I was further excited to hear that it wasn't another stupid action movie or melodrama as Filipinos love these types of movies. But alas, I was short-changed.Panaghoy serves as an ego trip for Cesar Montano. Montano of course plays the hero of the movie. And when I say 'hero' I mean in the most stereotypical of manners; his function is to win the heart of a girl and lead the Bol-anons to victory against the Japanese. His character has no depth or complexity. He just fits the hero mold. The rest of the characters are one dimensional; they all fit their cookie cutter roles.I'm all for slow-moving/meditative movies but this movie was just slow moving. It didn't really meditate on anything. Just because a movie is historically-themed, a drama and slow-moving doesn't make it a well-made film.Particularly annoying is the American actor Philip Anthony. His performance was embarrassing.If Montano wanted to revive the Visayan film industry he should have really thought this through. He said he wanted to make Visayan movies that could compete at Cannes and Toronto etc. but really, this movie would have been booed and hissed at at such festivals. To get Visayan films into the mainstream consciousness he should have at least made a movie that would have attracted audiences, even if it meant sacrificing quality. Obviously he didn't think about or get information on what kind of movies garner awards at Cannes so an audience-attracting movie would have been at least a foot in the door.I'm afraid now that Visayan movies will not be made for a long time again because of this movie. If ever I said to a Filipino that I want to see more Visayan movies of course I'd get an answer like, "Visayans don't make good movies. Didn't you see Panaghoy Sa Suba?" Of course this is ludicrous as it is one example of a Visayan movie and probably the only example that anyone nowadays would be likely to see.An example of movies that are meditative, not just slow moving, are the Tagalog film Blackout or David Lynch's The Straight Story. I hate to promote the Tagalog language as it is endlessly and unfairly promoted and shoved down the throats of non-Tagalog Filipinos but for the sake of calling a spade a spade I say that Blackout is a VERY good movie. These movies rely heavily on what Hitchcock called 'pure cinema'. Images without words are used to convey the story. But I bend the definition a bit for the sake of these two movies in that these movies use images without words to convey the mood of the movie. and they do it very well. Panaghoy thinks that if they simply take sweeping shots of the landscape then they have established the mood.And what's with so many Filipino movies featuring a dying mother or grandmother???

Well it's been a long year and I'm down to reviewing the final film for 2004. Panaghoy Sa Suba (Call of The River) placed second in the recent Metro Manila Film Festival. As expected, it didn't do so well at the box office as it was too artsy for the common moviegoers especially since MMFF is the season where a lot of families go out to see movies.It was quite intriguing to see a movie that was not in Filipino or English play out in the screen. I thought Cesar Montano did a good job both as a star and director. His great vision and creativity really helped this film. He was also very effective as the lead star and was able to express a wide range of emotions that was required for the film. Also performing well was young actress Rebecca Lusterio. She did a great job portraying Bikay, the younger sister of Duroy. I hope to see her in many more film projects in the future perhaps venturing into other genres. I think that the fact that this film was in her local dialect really helped her.Some of the camera shots in the film were done very well. The scenery was made breathtaking even though I feel that if a lesser effort would have looked completely different.In terms of the story I feel that the writers could have delved further into the lives of the lesser characters in the film. I certainly won't be raving about the story of this film.

Panaghoy speaks of patriotism, of loving, of living...If people in Manila cannot appreciate the movie in its entirety, then I would say they don't know what's a good movie.The movie serves as inspirational kinda thing for those who have deep appreciation of nature, history. It can appeal to symbols, to metaphors triggering many down to earth creations of mankind.The scenery does not only speak of Bohol, a virgin place to behold, but it also allows us to see the Philippines in its entirety.Behold the mountains, and the nature that adds to the local color of the scenes.The characters are magnitude in themselves because they portrayed a reason of living life and continue to go on amidst difficulties. But this situation speaks of simplicity and humility, of grace of character of candidness....One should see Panaghoy. You will not only appreciate the artists as performers, you will also appreciate the artist as creators.Thank you Cesar for making sense in producing movies that are worthwhile.

For this year's Metro Manila Film Festival, I was only interested in two films. One was Sigaw, since it was made by the very artistic Yam Laranas. And next would be Panaghoy sa Suba, since it was considered the winner in the festival and seemed a promising project. I was never interested in any of Joel Lamangan's works because I think he makes terrible films; his drama films are only good for acting awards, and the only good Lamangan movie that I saw was Hubog. I saw the second half of the movie Filipinas sometime ago and thought it was a complete mess. The movie tried to be everything but ended up a silver screen disaster.Now back to the movie. I never had any idea of the movie Panaghoy sa Suba except that it was done in Bisaya. After seeing the poster, another Filipino movie immediately came to mind: Boatman. First, because the main character was a boatman, or was at least riding a boat, and second, because it had Ronnie Lazaro in it. I thought maybe the film has something to do or was inspired by the Tikoy Aguiluz film. But after watching I learned the movie actually had nothing to do with the 1984 film.I saw the film as a narrative of this town in Bohol during the American and Japanese invasion. Like most period films, the personal lives of the characters were used as indirect analogy to the historical backdrop of the story. And for that purpose, I think the film was successful. Moreover, as a Bisaya speaking individual, I thought the movie was a brave act for Mr. Montano to make such film. Ceasar Montano did a good directing job, and the cast did an excellent acting job.One thing I noticed about the movie though was its inconsistency. The historical accounts of the plot seemed trivial, and the characters, especially the foreign ones, seem a bit unbelievable. There were lots of great cinematic shots, but there were also mediocre ones. Some takes of the river were done in excellent taste, but then some scenes were inserted out of place and somehow needed a little more editing. I also noticed that most award winning shots had Ceasar in them, especially the part where his character's brother was about to kill the American, while he was rowing fast to try to stop him. The scene was so Hollywood, and it was very effective. The experimentation of the director was obvious all throughout the film since I noticed lots of shots seldom or never used in local movies. If I'm not mistaken, there were more than two shadow scenes in the film, that somehow I felt the style was overdone. The dramatic scenes were also really good, and not just because of the talented actors, but also because of the direction and well done script. Personally though, I thought some words they used were a bit untimely for a 1940's setting, but then I may be wrong since I'm no expert in the evolution of our language.So the ultimate question, is it a good movie? Less the hype, and hypothetically less the language used, I think it is a good film, but not exactly exceptional. Of course it's definitely far better than other historical films, especially those done by Carlo Caparas. (Remember the joke that was the Tirad Pass movie? Hahaha!) The movie is worth watching, and indeed it is a revolutionary work in Philippine film-making. After a few more films and more brave/risky material, Ceasar Montano can be a really great director. When that time comes, Joel Lamangan and Mother Lily should finally retire.(postscript: I realized weeks after watching the film that the actor who played Ceasar's dad is a distant relative!)