Ang Tulay ng San Sebastian opens strongly, with a premise similar to that of Cinema One’s Bitukang Manok: our two protagonists are seemingly trapped in an endless loop, unable to cross the titular bridge. The atmosphere is built up right as effective camerawork bathes the frame in darkness, forcing us to scan the frame for ghosts that may or may not be there. The soundtrack, a dissonant mix of conventional horror sounds and the Koto (a Japanese stringed instrument) really gives off a vibe that echoes Akira Yamaoka’s work in Silent Hill.So far so good.
However, during the middle third of the film, things get really weird. The film loses much of its narrative focus and the story is reduced to our characters going from one seemingly unrelated situation to another. One idea, which I found tantalizing, turns out to be a red herring. Sometimes the individual scenes work, sometimes they don’t. The CGI is a mixed bag, but on the whole it doesn’t hold up compared to other horror films (I do commend the VFX team for at least trying given budget constraints.)
From a metafictional standpoint, in its first third, the film makes a point about the power of individual stories. Stories, urban legends, what have you – they grow and vary over time, but are rooted in the same narrative soil. The same can be said of horror movies in general – most of them can be categorized into the same familiar varieties. It takes a new tale, perhaps what this film is trying to do, to figuratively cross that bridge. Unfortunately, this point is soon left by the wayside, and the overall attempt is only partially successful.
The search for a missing lotto ticket; vomiting passengers and the fear of pointy things; sudden romance. A Lotto Like Love feels like a story out of Wattpad: the banter between the two characters feels familiar, there's a modicum of comedy with some drama stuffed in, and the female heroine is probably one of the most histrionic characters I've ever seen. The comedy and the dramatic aspects of the film were lukewarm for me, but the film does have some nice touches nevertheless.
Itot's relatively calm demeanor serves as the foil to Kayela, and in a weird sort of way they balance themselves out. To be fair, I liked Kayela's character a lot more when she acted less crazy. When I got to know these characters better, I surprisingly found myself relating to some of their troubles. It also made a certain dramatic scene the most effective scene of the film.
The lotto numbers, part of the film's central point, are used as a narrative device to develop both characters. Every number has a special significance to each character's respective pasts. It's a good idea, but these individual scenes don't mesh as well and the end result feels a bit clunky. The film finds its footing during moments of introspection, when the usually wild and boisterous characters dial down their antics. A Lotto Like Love has a few good ideas, but the execution falls a bit short.
At the outset, Sakaling Hindi Makarating looks gorgeous; it's the best local DOP work I've seen this year. Cielo's roadtrip in search of a mysterious postcard-sender, rife with scenery porn, could almost be called It's More Fun In the Philippines: The Movie.
The cinematography works not only with wide sweeping shots, there's also
an eye for composition in many of the shots in this film that take
place in closed spaces, in rooms lit with paintings, in characters
separated by the space of the frame itself.
Of course, the movie is much more than that. There's something romantic in the way the story unfolds, with the film using the lost art of letter-writing as a central concept, the process of self discovery and change in Cielo's trip, and in the stubborn hope of the anonymous postcard-sender.
Road movies are often a means for characters to recover their identity, or find connections to others that were invisible before. The quest like structure of the road trip is often done for characters to search for truth, or in other cases the truth may be irrelevant in the face of the journey itself. In this case, the road trip serves not only to find connections, but to break them; through a constant state of travel, one finds their true home.
The film is not perfect; some of the sound design choices are iffy, and acute ears can hear artifacts, obvious dubs and the lack of background sounds in some scenes. The film suddenly takes an abrupt change in its last third, robbing the mystery's conclusion of some emotional heft. But these are minor nitpicks to what is otherwise a very entertaining film.
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