#jadine

James Reid

Tiktok Link: No Erase (WrightWorth)

My rough translation:

Phoenix: Are you game?

Miles: So what now?

Phoenix: Are you sure?

Miles: Go ahead

Both: I just don't want to feel out of place

Phoenix: Are you game?

Miles: So what now?

Phoenix: Are you sure?

Miles: Yes!

Ulan (2019)

Written and Directed by Irene Villamor

Starring Nadine Lustre, Carlo Aquino, Marco Gumabao, and AJ Muhlach

Some Filipinos are fond of "Hugots" (romantic punchlines), but aren't you getting tired of this same recipe, only stirred with some catchy and relatable lines. Aren't we all tired of this exes meeting again and falling for each other, TWICE  and so on?

Before watching Ulan, I got curious at its first trailer. WELL WHO'S INTERESTED TO WATCH A ROMANCE FILM WITH A TIKBALANG, CREEPY BRIDE, AND A HUMPTY DUMPTY CHARACTER IN IT? Then after watching the film, it kind of made me, a Nadine Lustre fan. As I went home, I kept thinking about it. Well that's very unusual for a mainstream film. Ulan was as delicious as Adobo, it lingers in your senses for a long time.

Ulan is a film about how we look at love, and where else we could find it. The film starts with a young Maya, a girl who wants to dance in the rain. Her grandmother always tells her that the rain is a curse from heaven. But when the sun meets the rain, it is often believed that a couple of half-horse, half-human beings are being wed. When the grandmother died, what's left with Maya are the superstitions taught to her. She grew up alternately fascinated and fearful of the rain and stalked by half-human half-horse creatures (Tikbalang), and a typhoon named Aning (Creepy looking Bride).

The director used "Magic Realism" which made the film distinct and fresh compared to other Filipino romantic films. What made me love Ulan even more is the application of metaphor and psychology in every scene of the movie. Like for example, in this particular scene where she was bullied by her classmates, before her tears started to stream down her face, she turned her classmates into eggs, including her teacher. It all happened inside her mind. By that, she was able to hold it back. It is often believed that we should offer eggs to stop the rain from falling (to be honest, I find this superstition ridiculous). But I love how they creatively handled these superstitions in the film. What made this film more interesting is the main character's psyche. It's either she's schizophrenic or just a girl with a high level of imaginative fantasy. She lived a privileged yet lonely life; her parents died when she was a baby (based on her conversation with Peter played by Carlo Aquino); bullied at school; the only close relative she had, died as well. And now we're left with Maya, looking for the love she had when she was young. For her, rain was a curse from the heavens, but as the plot unraveled, little by little, she realized that the rain was actually an act of love, Maya is the rain, who showered people whom she loved most. What she had never done in her life, was loving herself. There's this scene where young Maya attended school, they discuss the process of Water Cycle, where the water from an ocean (or any body of water) evaporates. Just like her, as the loneliness in her grows and becomes heavier, a storm will soon feud with her present. And when that time comes, the realization will soon struck her with the truth that she’s flooding people with love and nothing left for herself.  At the end of the film, we saw young and old Maya, dancing under the rain, this figuratively shows that she had finally learned to love herself first before anyone else.

What happened to the third act?

I found it ridiculous to give Peter a tragic end. But it felt like it had to be done, his eagerness and hastiness are what brought him to his end. Sometimes the best love story ends with a tragic fate. Of all the men she had met, we know that Peter was the best for Maya among them. But everything went wrong for the two in this particular scene where young and old Maya had dealt with the typhoon, dressed as a gloomy bride named Aning. Aning was a raging storm who mourned for a love that she had lost. She told Maya that she'll end up the same fate as her. I feel that there was an intention behind the outcome of Maya and Peter's love story to end this way. The reason for this was the central message of the film; "Self Love."

So Adobo

The film made references to one of the famous filipino dishes like Adobo. I also loved how the movie incorporated the harsh reality of life here in the Philippines. Heavy Traffic, sexual harassment in the workplace (when her Boss teases her about sex), and our superstitions. Audience may have a glimpse of why women still struggle in modern times. For me, Ulan felt fresh compared to other mainstream romantic Filipino films. We got a simple plot with poor direction or build up, to make it more appealing to all audiences, they insert "Hugots" since this generation loves this kind of approach. It felt like a fast food product, it's easy to cook, easy to construct and produce. We have these cliché films about two women fighting over a guy, or a happy ending where two people kiss before the screen fades to black etc. Although the plot of Ulan seemed so simple and could have been more developed, the filmmakers found a way to make it different from other films especially in terms of the approach, flow of narrative, and theme. Ulan is a deviantly beautiful romantic film, served along with mainstream films. It's a type of film that gets even better a second time around.