I love this film. I don't cry that easily, but this film made me tear up. Maybe because I'm from Mindanao, where the film is set, so I know at least a little more than most how closely the events in this movie mirror real life. I live outside of the war zone, but among the same sort of people depicted in the movie.
The title, Bagong Buwan, means "New Moon", representative of the time when the nights are darkest, but also meaning hope, for after the darkest hours, the light will soon reappear. Watching it was like seeing people I know, old friends and neighbors, schoolmates and classmates. The child lost in the war zone, the refugees with nowhere to go, the parents distraught over the death of their only child, the brothers divided in ideology, the young freedom fighter, the Christian girl who married a Moslem, the young volunteer who tries to help… they are not just characters in a movie, but are representative of many people who, like me, live on this beautiful and embattled island where several religions, ways of life, and ideologies clash. And yet, like real life, these are no stereotypes, but seem like real people with real issues, neither good nor bad but somewhere in between and as human as they come.
My favorite part has to be the scene where the doctor bandages the wounded soldier and the latter quips like "Now I have to be removed from the battlefront because I'm already disabled," and the doctor retorts "I wish all the soldiers would get disabled so there won't be anymore fighting here in Mindanao." Cause that's what all of us Mindanaoans want, a peaceful coexistence despite all our differences.
