1982

Joey, Kathy, Sylvia and Maritess are not only classmates — they are the best of friends. Joey is a drug user who sleeps around. Kathy is a mediocre singer who will stop at nothing to fulfill her dream of the big-time. Sylvia is a liberated woman who finds security in the love of her ex-husband who is now living in with another man. Maritess plays the role of a conventional housewife, who is reduced to a baby-making machine. In the span of three years — from 1979 to 1982 — the film traces the lives of these four women through their seemingly desperate but also interwoven experiences, and in their attempts to resolve their individual problems, are mirrored the different faces of the woman in our society today.

Emil, a young executive, and his mistress Marilou, a planetarium guide, decide to be live-in partners. In the process, they discover each other's failing, which result in the strain in their relationship, bringing about their temporary separation. When they finally decide to resume their relationship, under a set-up wherein the man devides his time between his family and mistress, he dies frpm an attack of cerebral aneurysm. The woman decides to start a new life abroad, finding strength in the Jove of her departed lover.

In the first of the three periods covered, as suggested by the title itself, two aristocratic families from Negros enjoy the comforts and luxuries of their social class before the war. But this is disrupted by the difficult and unpleasant events brought about by the war. Dramatic changes have taken place in the lives of the Ojeda sisters, Trining and Maggie. So, too, with the teen-aged Miguel of the Lorenzo clan, who emerges a courageous and responsible man, forced to defend himself and his loved ones. When the smoke finally clears, those fortunate enough to have survived, bear the scars of war.

A realistic and metaphorical depiction of the horrors of fraternity initiations. The so-called masters of the organization subject their neophytes to gripping physical and psychological violence and humiliation leading to death and anarchy. It is yet another cinematic look at society's tolerance and acceptance, even approbation, of mindless conformity and submission-- the order of the day during the martial law regime.

Ishmael Bernal's film may be read as a parable of “art” and “life, “ faith and fact, hope and despair, in a society driven to desperation by widespread destitution. A filmmaker (Spanky Manikan) plays a pivotal role in the unfolding of the story of a village “miracle-maker” (Nora Aunor) who in claiming the Virgin has appeared to her, consequently brings the dying barrio to life. Bernal's parable is both philosophical and political. The filmmaker seems to have been set up as a representation of the artist who believes his art is a simple transcript of reality and finds himself confounded by the morality of condoning “untruth” by his failure to expose the outrage on the “miracle-maker.” The political aspect, in retrospect, is Bernal's damning comment on the deceptions being foisted by the Marcos dictatorship on the Filipino-- the fiction that Martial law had brought aibout the “miracle” of eradicating poverty and unrest in Philippine society.