Third World Romance, a review

 

For Alvin (Carlo Aquino) and Bree (Charlie Dizon), every day is a struggle. In the opening sequence of Dwein Baltazar's Third World Romance, this anxiety manifests itself in a restless camera and a single take. There are no cuts, no breaks; you have to be hustling or you risk losing money. There's no time for anything else.

But of course something does happen, and Alvin and Bree make the time for it. They slowly but surely form a relationship together, one that's filled with the well worn but welcome tropes that we've been privy to for as long as cinema has been a thing. But there are no trips to exotic, faraway lands, only familiar, humdrum places. There are no rich future-in laws opposed to the union, just normal people living their own lives. There are no fancy meals, not even at a Samgyupsal place - only the illusion of one, albeit one that is no less 'real' to our couple.

And as they try to navigate through their situation together, even as society is unfair to them, all they want is each other's happiness.  But in these times, even falling in love feels like a radical act. Those at the top would prefer it if those at the bottom would stay divided, fixated on their own survival. At first it would seem that way, and many local films have ended pragmatically (should I say cynically?) But the working class man's strength is his solidarity. One cannot fight for their rights alone. In this film, it works both in terms of Alvin and Bree's relationship and their relationship with their fellow employees.

And as such, for Alvin and Bree, to love despite the odds, to wish for another's happiness, to speak truth to power, takes more than a little bravery. Sure, the world may be unfair, or it may be falling apart, but when you're fighting back against it one little step at a time, it's better if you have someone to hold your hand while you do it.

Cinemalaya 2023 Reviews Day 3: Gitling, Tether

 

My favorite thing about her was that she listened: in the age of landline telephones, we once spent three hours talking about everything and nothing at all, but it was mostly me telling her stories I wrote, while she listened. In its own way, that was my secret language - a way to understand me more deeply as a person. I've never been the best at social cues so communicating through talk has never been my strength. Instead, I used stories. Back then I wasn't any good, and sometimes I think the same of myself even now, but she liked them. "John, keep writing," she told me. I told her the secret behind what would become the name of this blog. Without her, I would never have kept on writing, and this blog would have never existed. I was supposed to type "it ended", but how could something end if it didn't begin in the first place? We no longer talk, mostly thanks to my own stupidity, seeing something that wasn't there. In the end, what doomed our friendship was that while I shared my secret 'language', she didn't share hers.

(Anyway, please make fewer romantic films like this. I only have so many pseudo romantic stories to use as a prelude. I'm running out. haha.)

In Jopy Arnaldo's debut film Gitling, Jamie (Gabby Padilla) works as a translator and interpreter - a conduit between one language to another. She is given the job to interpret for a Japanese filmmaker, Makoto (Ken Yamamura, The Wolverine) as he presents his film in a film festival in Iloilo. The two connect over a shared interest in languages, but they know their time together is limited.

In the process of understanding another person, language forms a crucial part of building that level of understanding. As something that is built by culture and shared experiences, language is a large part of who we are, and it helps us connect to each other in ways no other species on the planet can achieve. Jamie uses an invented language to connect even more with Makoto, as after all, in Makoto's own words, "it's better having someone you can talk to in your own language." It becomes their refuge, as they find comfort in each other. Imagine going to another place and being unable to talk with anyone there? It's like a prison. Makoto's initial discomfort at trying to speak and understand the people around him (including a well meaning but hilariously undecipherable attempt at Japanese) is due to his inability to speak another language. He is relieved when he meets Jamie, who is able to understand and communicate with him.

And yet, there are other ways to communicate a feeling without the need for words: Makoto goes around Bacolod trying every food he can get his hands on, as food and cuisine are an example of non-verbal language. As a filmmaker, Makoto expresses his emotions through his art, whether the films he makes are silent or have sound. Through a shared experience, feelings can be exchanged and an intimate space is created between speaker and listener. 

Gitling also finds ways in its form and in its themes to convey the importance of language. Its subtitles are color-coded, switching between translations of English, Tagalog, Hiligaynon, Nihongo and Jamie's made-up language, and it also adds uses captions to express feelings during certain scenes (though considering the excellent performance of the two leads, it does feel a bit redundant.)

Gitling (a Hyphen) is a symbol that connects two separate words. In the context of Jamie's invented language, the word that results from this joining forms something new and distinct, possessing elements of both root words. The same, Jamie herself muses, can be said of all kinds of relationships: two people coming together, forming something with an entirely new meaning. 

When we speak a language, we often intuit what we intend to say at the end of our sentence, that is, even as we speak the first word of our sentence, we already have a sense of the completed sentence in our minds. Jamie and Makoto know how this is going to end. We know as well, based on our shared language of cinema and the film's tendency to crib from the films it loves to create a familiar (some would say cliched) structure. We know the outcome, but the way to reach that outcome is no less devastating. That leads to some of the most memorable moments in any film I've seen this year.

Gitling is an exquisite film, a skillful exploration of the many ways we communicate with each other, with or without words.

Relationships entail a level of empathy - of sharing your feelings with another person to the point that sometimes you're in sync. In Gian Arre's Tether, that concept is put to its limit.

After a particularly... energetic hookup, Kate (Jorybell Agoto) and Eric (Mikoy Morales) find that they share sensations and feelings between each other - if, say, Kate pinches her leg, Eric will feel his own leg being pinched. If Eric eats something delicious, Kate will feel the sensation of having eaten something delicious. Things take a dark turn when Eric, forever a playboy, makes the boneheaded decision to hookup with someone else, even though he should know that doing the horizontal tango will be felt by Kate as well. Men are stupid.

Tether turns from a fun little premise to a depiction of an extremely toxic relationship: thanks to abandonment issues, Kate becomes extremely possessive and paranoid, while Eric's promiscuous past and insecurities aren't exactly helping either. Their connection becomes something that imprisons them rather than something that makes them closer.

The problem lies in the way this premise is executed: the film's form is, to put it bluntly, bland shot-reverse shot conversations. Most of the (honestly too dragged out for their own good) setpieces are just the characters sitting or standing around somewhere and talking to each other. Had the film's editing or cinematography matched the two actors' intensity it would make for a truly chilling experience instead of the slogfest it ended up being. (If Jorybell Agoto is to win an acting award in this Cinemalaya edition, I think it should be for this film.) Technically, the film also suffers from various other problems, from footage that doesn't look color corrected to sound that can barely be heard (especially during a very crucial scene at the end.)

To be fair to the filmmakers, Tether was a last minute addition to the festival, giving them a very short time to put out a finished film, or at least an approximation of it. A for effort, but Tether ultimately feels unfinished.

Cinemalaya 2023 Reviews Day 2: As If It's True, Iti Mapukpukaw, Shorts A, When This is All Over, Rookie

 

Social media has irrevocably changed the idea of privacy, whether it still exists as we add more and more of ourselves to a curated virtual image, or whether other people are entitled to it or not. For Gemma Stone (Ashley Ortega), that doesn't even seem like a question: after going viral for a rant in a taxi, she has made herself into an influencer. But a rough breakup has left her career in the doldrums, that is until she meets James (Khalil Ramos), a struggling musician who takes to her immediately. The new relationship sparks a renewed interest in Gemma and her relevance in the internet sphere resurges.

I've seen various, often superficial takes on this film as yet another story of social media starring Gen Z millennials, and indeed there is no shortage of such films in the local milieu. I agree to an extent. However, the film is much more complex than it looks, owing to a fantastic usage of form that honestly left me tantalized as the credits rolled.

The fake flower Gemma takes home after her first date with James serves as a visual metaphor for their own relationship - a thing that takes the image of a rose, a symbol of love but one that (in this case) does not possess any of the elements of a real rose - a construct, an artifice representing the real thing. Yet there are hints that James is truly falling in love with his pretend girlfriend, giving her a level of trust that is more intimate than what is implied. But what about Gemma? Is she really only using James as a tool for her own needs?

At first I was sure of the film's outcome, but near the end this notion was put into serious doubt. If you've seen the film, you may have noticed that the soundtrack itself was starting to glitch out. What panache to do this in front of a very attentive Cinemalaya audience, who would question whether it was due to the theater or due to the film itself! Soundtracks are meant to evoke emotion, to guide us towards a certain feeling, as all the formal elements of film are meant to do. But here, it's like the movie is trying to make us question: what does this music want to make you feel? Why does this music want to make you feel? And is it congruent with what you're thinking of at this point in the story? Despite a rather conclusive feeling emotional climax, what follows seems to totally deconstruct it!

It's as if As If It's True wants to point out the facility of film itself in presenting a virtual image, a constructed reality where you aren't entirely sure what's right or not. This is a notion that's been explored before by the likes of Wells (F For Fake, for example) but a notion that feels very relevant today, when even "truth" feels pliable. It still gives me goosebumps every time I think about it.

This is a film that requires multiple watches, and in a world full of "turn off your brain" entertainment, hot takes and reductive criticism, maybe take a moment to think about what you've just seen. I may be in the minority here, but I think this film is a fucking breath of fresh air.

Sometimes we cannot find the words for the deepest kinds of pain. Sometimes, in our struggle to articulate profound trauma, something inside of us breaks and silence is the more comfortable option. Sometimes, when we try to rationalize things we do not understand, we lean into irrationality.

For Eric (Carlo Aquino,) that pain is kept deeply behind a veil of silence. It manifests in Carl Joseph Papa's Iti Mapukpukaw as the absence of his mouth, something that is achieved by painstaking rotoscope animation in the style of Carl Linklater's Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006). 

Eric lives as an animator and he lives a relatively quiet life. But when he finds out that his uncle has died, aliens arrive to "take" his body. It's clear that Eric's gone through something terrible, although we don't exactly know what. We soon learn what that is, and it is the kind of event that figuratively takes your body and your agency over yourself, an idea that is literalized thanks to the film's medium, one that allows us to see the world of Iti Mapukpukaw through Eric's own eyes.

Besides all that, what shines in Iti Mapukpukaw (and all of Carl Papa's feature lengths, to be honest) is the emotional core at the center of the film. His films make you feel a deep sense of empathy with their central characters, with all their flaws and wounds laid bare; his films often leave your heart heavy but also fill it with an unshakable sense of warmth and hope. What helps Eric on his journey of closure is a support system that tries to understand him even if his visions become harder and harder to understand. It all culminates in the scene depicted in the poster above, a scene that honestly brought a lot of people in the theater to tears. Love, in all its various forms, is also a central theme in Papa's films, love that can stave off death for just one more moment, make memories endure, and allow people to express and articulate deeply held pain.

Cinemalaya 2023 Shorts A Short Shorts Reviews

I don't think I've ever seen an audience so invested in the result of a horse race as I've seen in Mae Tanagon's Sota, a documentary about horse trainers and what happened to them during the pandemic. It's not particularly revolutionary storytelling, but it is an engrossing story. After this film you will believe in Success of Times (and that was not a typo.)

Arvin Belarmino's Hinakdal leans squarely into the absurd: it is about a family of zombies just living normally, eating vegetables and going to zombie school. However, when a normal human tries to steal a chicken, their (un) life changes profoundly. I'm all for absurdist comedies of this type, but when the film's tone veers sharply into melodrama, it feels a bit off, and I'm not sure what the film's trying to say (discrimination? unwarranted violence and dehumanization of the 'other?'), if it wants to say anything at all.

Kokuryo: The Untold Story of BB. Undas 2019 is bound to be an audience favorite. Two friends roam the city in search of a person who might be able to tell them the whereabouts of a sizeable amount of missing prize money won from a pageant. It manages to shed a spotlight on our trans sisters: bigoted attitudes towards them, limitations in terms of meaningful employment (and thus, the importance of any kind of income towards their survival), and the use of that income to fuel their goal of becoming who they truly are.

hm hm mhm would probably make a good double feature with a couple other films in this festival dealing with past trauma. It's interesting to see the interplay of "play" and the usage of dolls (often used to depict an idealized social structure) to depict trauma. Also, flowers with baby heads. I have not yet slept since yesterday. I kid.

The last shot of Januar Yap's Sibuyas ni Perfecto is one of scarecrows in the open field. I think it succinctly depicts how various middlemen and people at the top view common people - not really as people, but as vessels created to do a particular job. It's heartbreaking and sad in all sorts of ways.

While flawed, last Cinemalaya's Blue Room managed to paint a picture of the nature of privilege and how that privilege, drawn via class lines, leads to an unequal and unfair application of the systems and laws that govern us. Kevin Mayuga's When This Is All Over expands on that idea, adding the wrinkle of how class lines were made even more evident during the pandemic.

Stoner film, social drama and comedy all in one, When This is All Over tells the story of The Guy (Juan Karlos) who, pre-pandemic, worked as a fixer and dealers of sorts for all kinds of partygoers. That all came to a screeching halt when COVID lockdowns literally shut down even the slightest idea of a party scene. Now isolated in a condo provided by his mother (Ana Abad Santos), The Guy makes a living selling drugs to his wealthy neighbors. That is until said wealthy neighbors, bored of (their still very comfortable) quarantine, begin to plan a party of their own, and recruit The Guy to find a way to do it.

What follows is a funny, at times raucous comedy that shows just how fucked up we are as a society. The Guy's employers, a bunch of spoiled, vain, wretched individuals who think all things can be solved by power and influence, may just be some of the most evil villains in contemporary local cinema. If there were guillotines set up right now, they'd be some of the first candidates. And, it's not as if they don't know this fact; as one of them confides to The Guy, "yeah, I'm a bad bitch. So what?" it's made clear that they don't really care about other people, and maybe don't see those below them as people in the first place. Money and power have a weird way of changing people like that.

At the same time, The Guy comes across the many employees living in his condominium and befriends Rosemarie (Jorrybell Agoto), a kindhearted employee who is just trying to survive during a global, history-making event. The fact that we know this will not end well unless someone does the right thing is part of the tragedy of the whole enterprise.

The film's uncertain denouement is by no means revolutionary (unfortunately, we're not going to see any obscenely rich little shits get their heads chopped off by the end of the film) but there is the sense that at least to some extent, the law manages to affect everyone eventually (at least for a while). And there is the sense that while we cannot always change the world all by ourselves, we can take accountability for our own actions and make amends in our own ways.

There's just something so lovely about the word "comfort", about something or someone you can trust with all your heart and confide in without judgement, about something or someone that you can seek refuge in, about something or someone that makes you feel seen and heard. For a lot of people, Samantha Lee's Rookie is a  film that embodies that sense of comfort. A sweet, feel-good love story about two people finding that comfort in each other, it's one of the most romantic local movies of the year.

Ace (Pat Tingjuy) is an awkward teen who loves playing basketball and wonders why the boys in her neighborhood aren't too keen on letting her play with them. When she transfers to a new school, she learns that there is no basketball varsity team. Instead, she's recruited by the school's volleyball coach (Agot Isidro). There, she meets the volleyball team captain Jana (Aya Fernandez) who doesn't immediately take to the unskilled rookie. But as Ace learns the sport, Ace and Jana begin to find that comfort in each other.

As a sports film, Rookie has its share of flaws. We don't exactly see why Ace would be a good fit for the volleyball team; the coach seems to only assess Ace's height though we don't see her see Ace's athleticism and she doesn't teach Ace the ins and outs of a completely different sport from the get go. Though we do see her improve, she becomes a starter very fast (though to be fair, anime does this all the time). There's a lot to cover here, but the material is perhaps better suited to something longer (and I would not say no to a Rookie series.)

As a youth romance, Rookie is simply exquisite, a natural evolution from Lee's previous works Baka Bukas and Billie and Emma. Aside from the romance, it also addresses several issues faced by the young women of today, the culture in which they are discriminated against and the difficulties of holding people (especially men) to account for their actions. 

I call this one of the most romantic local films of the year because I haven't rooted for two romantic partners this much for a long time. These are two people, who, in finding comfort in each other, navigate a world that is far from perfect in terms of accepting who they are, and realize their eventual dreams regardless.

Cinemalaya 2023 Reviews Day 1: Bulawan nga Usa, Huling Palabas, Shorts B, Ang Duyan ng Magiting, Maria

 

Local films often depict the mountain as a place of transformation, healing and self discovery. In Pepe Diokno's Above the Clouds (2014), it's a way to grieve; in Ariel Barbarona's The Highest Peak, the film's grieving protagonist also considers what his actions as a mining company employee have done to the Lumad population living there and tries to make amends. 

Makoy (Ron Matthews Espinosa) has just lost his beloved grandfather. He has lived with him for many years, often traversing the mountain ranges near their home. He is estranged from his mother, who has remarried. In the process of grieving, the spirit of his grandfather calls out to him and Makoy sets out and climbs the mountain to find the mythical golden deer, and more importantly, himself.

Bulawan nga Usa (Golden Deer) is the kind of film you only really see in a film fest like Cinemalaya - with a modest budget, but brimming with imagination. Animated sequences tell the story of the titular golden deer, among other myths and stories Makoy tells the children on the mountain. He finds a kindred spirit in the form of a young boy (John Niel Paguntalan), who has his own form of grieving to work through. The kid's sister has gone to the city to study, a rare and celebrated occurrence in the mountain community, but it has left the kid feeling as lonely as Makoy.

Bulawan nga Usa is hampered by its own limitations. The most noticeable of the film's problems is its sound, as most scenes (especially those not taken on the mountain) sound fuzzy and distant. Still, maybe the true golden deer is the golden deer we find along the way, and despite the uncertainty in its conclusion, there is a sense of passing the torch, in that while Makoy's grandfather was once the source of inspiration for a young boy, Makoy himself is one, too.

I don't think I would ever predict how VHS would grow obsolete; not right away and all at once, but slowly, gradually being replaced over time, until you look around and see that everything has changed. That's how the end of an age moves; one small step at a time, till you look back and you see that you've gone a long, long way.

For Andoy (Shun Mark Gomez), his own transformation goes the same way. He spends most of his teenage days renting and watching VHS tapes with his best friend (Bon Andrew Lentejas). The townsfolk think that Andoy is the son of a supernatural creature, maybe a Sigbin; but he is merely a studious boy whose absent mother provides for him (and by extension, his adoptive family.)

Andoy's life shifts when he meets two people - Ariel (played by Serena Juan... and named after the mermaid?) a hairdresser who 'fishes' for local boys, and a mysterious man named Isidro (Cedrick Juan), who also shows films to the local audience on his TV - albeit using a newfangled technology called a "VCD player."

Huling Palabas is a film about the end of ages: of youth, of stereotyped sexual identity, of innocence. It frames the transformation and self realization of a young queer man in the backdrop of a bigger, historical change, while also weaving in elements of myth and folklore. One could only imagine how many people like Andoy were treated as supernatural creatures, and how they are shunned in that community. But in this film, that idea is undergoing its own transition - as (at least for some), fear becomes acceptance.

The final scenes, then, are a way of taking that last step from one age to another, accepting the change that has occurred in its wake, and setting fire to a past 'self' that no longer exists. Huling Palabas captures a sort of magic that Cinemalaya films rarely do. It's one of my favorite films in the fest.

Cinemalaya Shorts B Short Shorts Reviews

Over the better part of two decades, my parents operated a business on their own, in a small, decrepit building in San Marcelino street. I remember many days during my childhood when I ran around its (relatively) spacious offices or helped edit or print business letters and dispatches to employers in the middle east. I felt the same way during the first half of Kurt Soberano's Golden Bells, a film about his family's business in Bacolod. Its first half manages to establish a rich milieu, though as it transitions towards a present-day epilogue, I feel like it skips over a lot of things - this is a rare case of me wanting the proceedings to be expanded further into something longer-form. Nevertheless, it's a deeply personal film about the importance of family and how a single person can shape it for better or worse.

A young man and his younger brother deal with grief in Mayoko sa Baybay, yet even though its lush images suggest at something deeper, for the most part it feels frustratingly surface level. It's not necessarily bad, however, though I'm conflicted if either a longer film or a film of the same length but with more elaboration would have made more sense.

Ang Kining Binalaybay Kag Ambahanon Ko Para sa Imo (These Rhymes and Rhythms Meant for You), on the other hand, has no trouble establishing its story: an old man and his granddaughter travel the land to give said granddaughter a new home. Something bad happened to the granddaughter's  parents and there's still bad blood on the other side of the family for this. But then as the film reaches its emotional climax, it just ends abruptly, which is a shame, as the chemistry and rapport built by the two excellent actors for the past 16 or so minutes needed something more to bring it to a proper conclusion.

On the other hand, Tong Adlaw Nga Nag-Snow sa Pinas uses every second of its five minute runtime surgically and systematically, depicting the lives of two children living through violence and finding ways to escape, "changing" the setting with their own snow and finding refuge in films. It's a fully realized short and an excellent example of what the medium can do.

In Ilocano folklore, the Batibat is a demon that resides in trees. Sometimes, when their tree dwelling is used as building materials for a house, the Batibat stays in what remains of that tree, victimizing anyone who sleeps near them by invading their dreams. In Maudi Nga Arapaap, one of the most beautifully shot films of the year, the Batibat is used as a manifestation of trauma: something that does not leave even you literally try to throw it away, something that leaves you paralyzed even if decades have already passed.

I've been stuck for a long time making a particular video essay, one that ruminates on the ending of Rae Red's Babae at Baril (2019), where the titular character, played by Janine Gutierrez, throws away the gun she just gained in the river to try to end the cycle of violence in which she's been trapped for the past hour and a half or so. In that forever unfinished essay, I explore the two arguments for and against that character's decision. First, there is the argument of the political philosopher Frantz Fanon, who experienced colonial racism first hand in the Caribbean island of Martinique, who argues that violence, or rather, violent resistance, is a necessity imposed by the colonists upon the colonized - extended to those who oppress, and those who are oppressed, because violence is the only language they speak. Second, there is the reaction or extension (not necessarily a rebuttal, mind) of that concept by the educator Paulo Freire, who argues that education that is free from colonial roots be used to elevate critical consciousness and "fight back," in that way, enabling those oppressed to regain their humanity.

Dustin Celestino's Ang Duyan ng Magiting interrogates the necessity of violence in the process of resistance. In more than a dozen chapters, each essentially a one act play on film, Celestino maps out an all too familiar story: two young men (Miggy Jimenez and Dylan Ray Talon) are accused of bombing a church. A social worker (Dolly De Leon) is tasked to help them out, but she meets resistance from the police chief (Paolo O' Hara) who has his personal reasons for keeping the two where they are. Meanwhile, an activist teacher (Jojit Lorenzo) reels from the fallout of a now-viral rant that has left him facing the true implications of what he has done.

In post screening conversations, an idea came up about how Celestino, an accomplished playwright, has often depicted the (often masculine) nature of violence, and how (often repressed) anger leads to it. A mild spoiler, but this film's ending is literally two very angry, very indignant men in the midst of committing violence. In Ang Duyan ng Magiting, he crafts a situation where all the parties concerned are driven by their own beliefs, regardless of whether we agree with those beliefs or not, with all those actions mostly spurred on by the instinct to survive, or to 'other', or to hate. At the same time, it frames anger and violence in the context of nationalism - how the love for country (either as part of the state or as part of a revolution to transform it) sometimes lets those things in. It lays its thesis bare and I think this is the kind of film that merits serious discussion, definitely not something that can be covered in a short time or in a review like this.

The star studded ensemble is given great material to work with, and pretty much everyone shines in their respective roles. As the film moves from set piece to tense set piece, it doesn't let up that tension for a minute. As a cinematic experience, the end product is deeply engrossing and definitely worth watching.

I've always wondered what happened to Mary after Jesus' death; the consensus seems to be that she ascended into heaven after her son's death, as if giving birth to him was her only true raison d'etre. I prefer to believe the Byzantine scholar Hyppolitus of Thebes, who wrote that after her son died on the cross, Mary lived another 11 years. Maybe she lived in quiet solitude and mourning. Maybe she helped spread the teachings her son preached, or taught others teachings of her own. In the wake of unspeakable loss or tragedy, the responsibility of taking care of what's left is left to the widows. The weight they carry is a great burden, but one that many will carry with great effort and patience.

Sheryl Rose Andes' Maria tells the stories of three women who all possess that name as they deal with profound losses of their own. Two of them have lost nearly everything from the "War on Drugs" that has lasted since 2016 until today, and one of them who tried to do something about it.

The film also touches on several other issues happening in our country today: the poor state of our crime investigation system, the lack of accountability of the state and how disinformation, misuse of social media and a lack of education on critical thinking leads to people voting and choosing against their own interests. It's honestly heartbreaking seeing what has happened to our country in the past decade, and the way things are going it doesn't seem to be getting better any time soon.

But, as the film shows, the worst thing anyone could do is to give up. That's probably why I liked Hyppolitus' story about Mary: because she found the strength to live on for just a little longer. Justice or divine retribution (if it ever exists)a is something that is earned, and it is not something that is achieved overnight.

On the other hand, the story of the first Maria is overshadowed by the other two; after a certain point, she disappears from the narrative and doesn't show up again until the credits. It feels like her presence was just to make a (completely valid) point, but the structure feels just a little off.

Maria is one of the most important films to watch this year: albeit flawed, it is a potent reminder to ourselves that the struggle for what is right does not end with any single loss, nor does evil go away on its own.