In terms of basic structure, Alpha Habon's Kaka sa Yawan reminds me of Kevin Piamonte's 2025 debut feature Candé, in which a man returns to his old hometown to confront traumas from his childhood. Habon expands on that idea, tying in a personal story of connection with concepts of lowlanders' relationships with people from tribal communities.
The film takes place in two timelines. In the present, Niko (Beaver Magtalas) returns to Mindoro after a long time away. He meets people from his past, but he's there for one specific purpose. In the past, a younger Niko (Bryce Nicolo Mercader) comes to Mindoro in order to meet with his estranged mother Mely (Nikki Valdez). Unaccustomed to his new living situation, he yearns to leave but then meets Ayan (Dennis Dato), a member of the Tadyawan-Mangyan peoples living in the area. The two form a very close friendship.
Director Alpha Habon leaves a lot of ambiguity in depicting its two protagonists' relationship, and leaves it up to the viewer if Niko and Ayan's relationship crosses from mere brotherhood into something else. In any case, the chemistry between the two leads is tangible, and it helped the film gain a decent following during its Cinemalaya run.
In one scene with the older Niko and his childhood friend Precious (Queenzy Mercado), the latter asks him why he had to return, implying that in having returned to his original home in the capital, he did not need to come back. Niko's response, embodied in the second half of the film, is that however far he may be from Mindoro, the bonds he forged there will stay with him forever, and ultimately, when he is ready, he will come back. It sits in stark contrast with fellow Cinemalaya batchmate Hand of God, where a tragic setback leads to the protagonist abandoning the place entirely.
And there are many things that still need to be addressed that the film shines a spotlight on: the lack of proper medical facilities in rural areas, education opportunities for tribal peoples, the lingering embers of discrimination that prevent those same indigenous men and women from uplifting their own communities. My favorite moment in the film by far is when it rewires that discriminatory language into something positive. People ask Ayan if he has a tail (long used as a means to dehumanize and discriminate against his people) and Niko answers yes - he is Ayan's tail, using the other meaning of the word (i.e. one who follows). And in more ways than one, Niko embodies that reclaimed meaning.
In the world of Tirik, the taxi cab is a confessional, its confessor weighed down by the burden of the sins he witnesses, its penitent weighed down by the burden of the sins he commits. It is ruminative, often meandering to its own detriment, and its ending is clumsy. But there's something about it that still sticks with me days after I've seen it.
Based on a true story, Tirik takes us on a roadtrip to Dasmarinas infused with a loose, tito rock sensibility. Father Bert (Rocco Nacino) is a parish priest who, in the age of Duterte's drug war, is considered an activist. When he learns that one of his former parishioners, a student leader and journalist, has been extrajudicially killed, Bert sets off to Cavite to hold a mass. A taxi driver and personal friend, Santos (Floyd Tena), volunteers to take him there for free.
The two converse and get into various situations as they head to the wake, and it's clear that both friends have very differing views on sin and accountability. Bert's approach towards these situations is constant, uncompromising compassion: when confronted with a wounded dog, Bert does everything he can to treat the animal, while Santos wants to euthanize it instead. This ends up backfiring (and the poor dog likely gets a grim fate either way) but despite the added hassle and delay, Bert always tries to do the right thing, much to Santos' exasperation.
Bert's radical kindness seems to rub off on Santos, who is obviously hiding something from his friend. Much of the good parts of Tirik consist of Floyd Tena's understated but effective performance as Santos, as he slowly, but surely comes to terms with his own sins. In the most crucial scene of the film, he asks if those bathed in sin are still worthy of God's grace. Bert's response, embodied in the life he lives, is affirmative - his very existence serves those in the margins, for he, like the one whose teachings he follows, "comes to seek and save the lost."
Granted, these themes are embedded in a film that feels like it is lost in its own ruminations. It is deliberately paced and awkwardly structured. That crucial conversation in the last paragraph? It comes at the end of a dinner where Bert and Santos explicitly prepare to leave immediately. They don't, opting instead to have this talk. And the ending of the film feels metaphorical rather than something existing in the film's reality, because Father Bert's gonna need to have a few extra clothes for that mass.
In my honest opinion, it is appropriate to describe the cinematic adaptation of Guelan Varela-Luarca's play Corridors as 'batshit insane'. In fact, there are some aspects of Mag-iina that tone down things from its source material - the characters going into spasms with every transition would've been an interesting choice, for example. But there is method to this madness, and it serves as a companion piece to fellow Cinemalaya batchmate A.ni.mal in their exploration of power and how it is perceived and perpetuated.
Upon reading the director's statement, Mag-iina's approach to horror differs from other works that directly depict evil and malevolence as its driving force. Here, Luarca and director Giancarlo Abrahan identify love, albeit a very twisted form of it, as the source of these corruptions. They identify Filipinos as the most social of social creatures; they identify our desire for power as intertwined with the basic social unit of the family, and what else binds a family together as strongly as love? Instead of a black hole from which nothing can escape, the family at the center of Mag-iina is its opposite: an all-shining star whose eternal, unfading light casts no shadows. The film delights in subverting traditionally good imagery and twisting it to a dark version of itself: the sanctum sanctorum, the holiest of holies, serving as the studio where dark arts are made, the image of a life giving bosom gushing blood, the unholy trinity of parent, child, and unholy ghost together in an endless, incestuous embrace. This is how dynasties are created.
And it does so in a wickedly jocose, almost tongue-in-cheek manner. It delights in its own mayhem, and the performances of its main cast certainly adds to that. Of note is Lucas Andalio, who manages to deliver an exceptional performance. Props also have to be given to the film's exceptional technical aspects, particularly its production design, which gives the house a character of its own, making its four walls feel ominous and oppressive.
With all that said, the ending of Mag-iina (directly taken from the play) feels like a rhetorical question, or at best, a promise for something that may not come for a long time. It is not intended to give you answers, only that the answer exists, out there, in a place where even the all-encompassing light of love cannot reach.
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