Pisay Movie Review By Butch Francisco

(Photo Caption: Child actor Elijah Castillo as 'Minggoy'. Source: http://www.pisaythemovie.com.ph/castcrew.html)

Filipino film critic and Philippine Star entertainment writer Butch Francisco recently wrote a review of Pisay The Movie. It can be found online at
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=88653 .

The review is being quoted here:

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STARBYTES (The Philippine Star)
By BUTCH FRANCISCO

A FILM THAT IS BRILLIANTLY PISAY

Months before I graduated from elementary, our class adviser informed us that she had with her application forms to the Philippine Science High School. In my mind, I thought that was so sweet of her to have offered — until she dropped the addendum: “But don’t bother if you’re not the Number One in class.”

I was certainly not Number One — wasn’t even close to it. In fact, in second grade I even experienced being in the bottom one grading period — but that was the time I successively had the measles, chicken pox, had the mumps month after month and missed two periodical exams, including the finals. In the entire ten school months, I only managed to show up for eight.

Somehow I managed to pass, but was relegated to a lower section the following school year and did better in third grade. Eventually, I was brought back to the higher section, but was never Number One in class. And so goodbye, Philippine Science High School — or Pisay.The only time I set foot in that campus — on Agham Street in Quezon City — was when I was invited by one of the teachers there, Ms. Anna Santiago-Oblepias, to give a lecture on film criticism. I knew that this was no ordinary high school. The lecture I prepared, in fact, was something even beyond college level. I made the right decision. The students were brilliant and they would have been bored stiff had I talked to them on the level of a regular high school.One afternoon with them, however, wasn’t enough for me to get an insight into what goes on in the minds and in the lives of these young people considered to be the crème dela crème.

Thankfully there is Pisay, the movie, which is shot entirely within the Philippine Science High School compound. In this film, we see what life is like for the students there — and how it could also be unenviable at times. Oh, just think of the pressure they go through every day of school life.Pisay is made up of different stories divided into freshmen, sophomore, junior and senior years, but all intertwined. And so we see a tale of young love (and how it can get in the way of academic performance), being unable to cope with the high standards set by the school (with or without the distraction of a love life, it’s one tough world studying there), getting politicized and finally being in a crossroad of choosing a career path (aside from sciences, they are also taught to dabble in the arts to make them more well-rounded).Pisay is set within the first half of the ’80s — when there was so much political upheaval in the Philippines. These events — the Ninoy Aquino assassination and all the way to the first EDSA — serve as backdrop to the stories of the Philippine Science High School students and no period in our history could have been more appropriate than that time frame to tell us the victories, failures and awakening of the young people at Pisay.

On the lighter side, we also see the Pisay students having fun and sporting the Bagets look, which was big during that era. And so they also party and unwind — although now they’ve gone big time because last year I sat as judge at the Philippine Science High School Prom King and Queen search and it was held at the posh and every expensive Makati Shangri-La Hotel.

Pisay actually shows that the people there are more or less like you and I, except that they’re more exceptional. They also hurt and get disappointed like the rest of us. But they’re more brilliant.Oh, brilliance! Like the students whose lives are depicted in the film, Pisay is a showcase of brilliance in direction, script and performances. Eugene Domingo as the physics teacher is her usual brilliant self. She has a Visayan accent here, but it is not intended to elicit humor the way other local films do. She is depicted as a native of one of the Visayan islands and still speaks on an accent — and doesn’t apologize for it.

Another brilliant performer is Claudine Najero, a stage actress who also is an alumna of Philippine Science High School I understand. She is very pretty, has perfect diction and delivers a good acting job as the geometry teacher sympathetic to the plight of her students.

Actually, everyone turns in more than above average performances, particularly those playing students — led by Gammy Lopez, the twin of Nathan Lopez, who plays the title role in Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros. That Pisay is brilliant (it was graded A by the Cinema Evaluation Board) shouldn’t come as a surprise anymore. It is, after all, a film by Auraeus Solito, whose first full-length film, Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros won Urian Best Picture the other year. Solito, it turns out, is a Philippine Science High School alumnus. He may not have pursued a career in science, but his alma mater should still be proud of him — especially with this film. With Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros and this movie, he is brilliantly Pisay.

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Related Links:

http://www.pisaythemovie.com.ph/pressreviews.html

Cheers,

Raffy
The Pisay '77 Blogger
8/26/07