Ma' Rosa

Brillante Ma Mendoza is usually a hit or miss for me. He had a lot of misses, but he's got some hits for me too. This one is for me one of his strong films, if not the strongest. This film got the attention of the Cannes. And even if I'm not big on awards, I think this film deserves whatever recognition it got.

I know I've had enough with the "Look at us, oh we're so poor and we live in hell" pity party that is the common subject of most indie Filipino films. But I don't know why I loved this. Probably because it didn't look like a movie at all. It was so real and reflective of the state of the Philippines that it almost looked like a documentary.

Brillante engaged the talents of veteran Filipino actors here. The lead actress, Jacklyn Jose, is already a no-brainer. She could pull off any role, whether a protagonist, an antagonist, or even a plain bit player and she'll still steal the show. I was particularly impressed with her here, with no make-up and "acting" that looked so natural it never felt like she was just acting at all. There's a recognizable supporting cast(Julio Diaz, Mon Confiado, Mark Anthony Fernandez, Baron Geisler, Andi Eigenmann, Maria Isabel Lopez, and Allan Paule whose number of gay roles in indie films I've lost count already, and some others) that gives life to the bleak situation being portrayed.

Brillante takes a bold statement here, but not controversial. Just congruent with reality. He centered on the controversial drug war, but not on the most publicized extra-judicial killings. He focused on the other side of the narcotic trade that's been in the circles for so long but was never exposed.

Rosa (Jacklyn Jose) is your typical slum family matriarch. Along with her husband, Nestor (Julio Diaz), they engage in small-time sale of illegal drugs. They got arrested after their house was raided and they were found in possession of the drugs. Instead of undergoing standard booking procedures at the precinct, they were brought to a separate backdoor office where they were made to bargain for their liberty. The policemen, seeing that they could make use of a bigger fish than the ones they caught, made them confess of their supplier. But despite doing so, they were still asked for money in exchange for their freedom. Same thing happened with their supplier. Their 3 children did all ways to raise the money. Giving up their goods, their body, their pride.

Over-all I'd say this is a statement film. I commend Brillante for outing the abuses and corrupt practices of rogue policemen in the country. There are no long shots of nothing here, pure statements, pure reality.

So they pray and move along the lines of corruption and power. Like a nest of crawlers climbing on top of each other scraping pennies for ransom. The so-called government policy of drug cleansing is just another form of oppression. People live the same "jungle law". It all screams a steaming nightmare . It seems like a tropical pandemonium.

The camera sweats with gritty realism. Like a trap, falling away from fantasy rolled in a paranoid delusion. Shot like a live documentary with a magnifying glass steadicam running through the slums in the chase for another piece of the story.

Rosa Reyes lives by selling goods in a local suburban store and dealing drugs on the side. Her husband uses and deals also. Their kids disperse each other in gambling or prostitution. Is all there to please immoral and self denial, the connection l sets for imminent disaster. When corrupt cops raid their place and demand money in exchange for freedom they will deal with whatever means they have in order to remain together. Dystopian holiday street food slum vs after party early morning hangover, That's how it felt parallel stories. Meaning one of their parents and the other one of their kids

The nocturnal feels steamy and dreary. There was no conclusion where anything could end up exactly as it started. Like a living hell where after isn't better than before. There was no escape for them or their kids. The Reyes were doomed before they even knew anything different. The last shot says it all. Is so overwhelmingly sad the face of Rosa contemplating where she is now and forever be. Jaclyn Jose won the Best actor award at Cannes for this role. Sadly she passed away less than a year ago in 2024 from a heart attack. She was 60 years old.

Ma' Rosa has four children. She owns a small convenience store in a poor Manila neighborhood where everybody likes her. To make ends meet, Rosa and her husband Nestor, resell small amounts of narcotics on the side. When they get arrested one day, Rosa and her children are ready to do anything to buy her freedom from the corrupt police.

Ang galing ng acting, yung tipong nangyayari talaga. Ang swabe, parang sya yung kapitbahay mo sa kanto. Ganoon. Salute to Ms. Jacklyn, ang husay talaga.

That Voice!

Her acting is not acting - she portrays "real" with such ease.

Understated with such delicacies and complexities. Superb.

I just watched this on Popcorn films and really "enjoyed" it. I put that in quotes because it's kind of a gripping drama, it's not a nice sweet feel-good. But it's also not sappy and over-the-top, doesn't feel deliberate or pushed at all. It reads almost like a documentary (as another reviewer said), with its candid acting and "unsteadicam" cinematography. This role won Best Actress at Cannes 2016 for Jaclyn Jose, in the leading role here.

Spoiler alert on the blog; it doesn't give it all away, but anyway, knowing what the story is about doesn't really spoil it. You need to see it happen.

The naturally unfolding pace of the film is frustrating to some (another review), but it's really just a slice-of-life capture, that unfolds in its own time. I liked it enough that I'm looking for other films by the director and some of the cast.

This movie definitely had potential to be entertaining, but director Brillante Mendoza unfortunately let the movie slip into mediocrity.

It ultimately felt like you had been sitting in front of the movie for a week by the time the movie actually ended. And that was because of the storyline and the script. It quite simply took forever to almost go through no progress in the storyline on the screen. It was quite a testing ordeal to sit through, to be brutally honest.

There were some nice performances throughout the movie, and Jaclyn Jose really carried the movie quite nicely with her performance.

However, there were just way too much fillers and pointless stuff being shown and filmed that made it seem like a very prolonged experience. I am somewhat familiar with the corruption that permeates the government and also police system in The Philippines, so the movie does paint a fairly adequate image of that. Now, I can't claim to be familiar with the drug trade in the local barangays in The Philippines, so that aspect of the movie is not one that I can comment on.

"Ma' Rosa" is definitely not a defining moment in Tagalog cinema. But it was interesting enough to see a movie that was not the usual romantic comedy genre that Tagalog cinema is drowning in.