1980

 

Monica Real is arrested for the murder of her husband and his two friends. Only she knows the reason for the crime, but she in a trauma. Monica's case draws the interest of Clara Valdez, a feminist and journalist who is living in with a young executive. In her investigation of the case, Clara talks to Monica's mother, who tells her of Monica's timidity and her rape by the man she eventually married. Clara also meets Cynthia, who reveals Monica's "other" personality, which stemmed from her association with the sexually wayward Cynthia. In the end, Clara convinces Cynthia to pay Monica a last visit. The patient finally speaks and tells of the sexual humiliations that drove her to murder.

Bona is a young woman who decides to abandon her family to become an alalay (girl Friday) to Gardo, a movie bit player and stuntman whom she idolizes. She joins him on location shootings, cooks his food, heats the water for his bath, and even accepts his flings with other women. One night, Gardo asks Bona for a massage, which ends in casual lovemaking. Meanwhile, Bona's father dies of a heart attack, and she is blamed by her brother for the death. Gardo then meets Katrina, a millionaire's widow, who asks him to migrate with her to the United States. He grabs the offer. Bona pleads with Gardo not to go, because she now has nothing to go back to, but Gardo is unmoved. Desperate, Bona reaches for a cauldron of boiling water and douses it on the unsuspecting Gardo.

Daniel Aguila, a Filipino born in 1892, confronts and recoils from the weakness he sees among Filipinos at critical periods in our history. As a boy, he sees his revolucionario father betrayed by the man who eventually becomes his stepfather. As a young officer in Mindanao, he protects his stepfather who has come to grab lands from the Muslims, who retaliate by killing his mother and step-brother. He also has a son by a Muslim lass, whom he is forbidden to marry. As a PC officer, he gets involved in a legal tussle between an anti-American mass religious sect and the pro-American town-elite. He then meets a fast-talking iady iawyer, whom he eventually marries. As a USAFFE officer, he allies with a Huk leader to get much-needed supplies in a Japanese-held town but sees this leader treacherously captured by the Americans. In his middle age, he keeps a mistress and sees his eldest son turn into a corrupt senator, who uses blackmail to silence an activist group that exposes his corruption. In his old age, he leaves his family to work for the Aetas in the mountains.

A loving, candid, Altamanesque vision of a city full of colorful, flesh-and-blood characters—living, loving, lying, fighting, struggling in a world of decay and decadence, joy and squalor, mystery and revelation, hope and frustration. Using the eloquent language of cinema, the filmmaker imaginatively exposes the frailties and strengths of these people, their joys and heartaches, encompassing the different seasons and special occasions like one explosive New Year's Eve and a lusty Valentine merry-making.