The movie already announced it had a very simple plot, a typical love story.
Critics always said that it is the story that ruined the movie. But I think that isn't what the director was really aiming for. It does not complicate matters with a complicated plot with many twists and turns. It stays with a simple one.
What makes it different is not its story but in the way it told the story. The director had to craft a way of telling how Marty sees the world. And that's how the film unfolds.
The look and feel of Manila is captured through the painting of the city. It showed how schools really feel, with a rugged, dirty look. You can see bus stops covered with political agendas. Security guards sleeping around. Parks were cherished back then, it is shown by painting and animating these places intricately.
It also showed the places and people Marty disliked by giving the places or people a really red look. ECP cafe, Nick, Sally's Parents, the Cinema.
Strangers are portrayed as gray monsters since Marty doesn't really care about them. The house(or fortress) of Sally is placed on a really far cliff to show how terrifying it feels for Marty whenever he goes there. He usually walks and dreads the journey going up there. And to go there by flying is a way of showing that he goes there confidently without fear.
When the monsters, Sally's Parents, Nick, happen to be nice, they are portrayed as humans. Sally never has a monster form, but appears in many of the artworks Marty does.
Lastly, Love is shown as the feeling of floating and flying around in Sally land(drawings of Sally). Despair is shown as a black room with all of the drawings of Sally falling down. Emotion is what makes this film different, look at how it portrays many emotions of the main character through the different animations it does during these scenes. This emotional essence is what makes Filipino media different from all other films abroad, we have more words, more ways to describe and do emotion than a lot of other cultures. And this is what I would like people to peer more when watching Saving Sally or other Filipino films.
I really think critics should also note that this film had been made for the 2005 audience. And I think if this had more than its hero-monster- saving elements, many of the film's magic in its animation would have been lost to replace it with the story. The film was made to try a new medium of storytelling. And I believe that this will inspire young artists to try better story ideas and better ways of telling stories to fuel Philippine Animation and Philippine Cinema to a new golden age.
