10:14 P.M. April 30, 2008
I just got home from church, and I just opened my phone to read my messages, when a message from Executive Producer Guia Gonzales came in.
It says:
Ang lambot ng Ploning, ang tahimik pero mainit at nakakapaso. Kapag di ka umiyak, di mo naiintindihan ang konsepto ng pag-ibig.
-From a former Star Cinema employee
All throughout the articles I’ve posted, I’ve mentioned how I had bawled all the way through the last scenes of the movie. I was unable to see some snippets of the movie, even. Because my eyes were already half-closed from crying.
Indeed, you have no true understanding of the word “love,” if the movie did not sear you through to the bone. The four kinds of love I learned about in high school Values class were there:
Eros is defined as romantic love, Philia as love between friends, Storge as the love between family members, and Agape as the ultimate form of love: self-sacrificing love.
Ploning showed all four forms of love, encased in scenes that were subtle, moving and beautiful. It was a movie that would really take your breath away, make your knees weak and keep you guessing what it’s all about until it hits you, and all you can do is to cry, because you are so moved.
Love is not all about Eros. It is not that giddy feeling you get when your girlfriend or your boyfriend gives you flowers or gives you a kiss. Neither is it all about the love of family, nor about the love between friends.
For me, True Love is a combination of all four forms, in a marital relationship, or it is either Philia+Agape or Storge+Agape. For me, Love is not love at all if there is no “dying to self” or sacrifice involved. Love is never all about just a romantic, animalistic passion. Neither is it a feeling.
For me, Love is never without these three components: commitment, compassion or empathy, and a desire to lay your life down for the other. Without the desire to lay your life down for the other’s benefit, your so-called Love is shallow, as it would be likely that you would be in a self-centered state that when the tough times come, it would be easy for you to walk away from the situation because it is no longer fun or convenient from you.
Ploning the Movie is so subdued and subtle, that it is your spirit that would feel the Love. It is not a fun, happy feeling that you would have when you leave the theater. When you leave the theater, you actually feel like your insides had been scrubbed, and that some degree of redemption had taken place within you, and you would understand that Love is not about serving yourself. It is about serving the other with all that you are. And in return, the other person would be so grateful as to be moved to actually give that love back.
Maybe you would leave the theater with a “Huh?” if you did not understand how Panoramanila presented love. But I assure you, there is definitely no reason to say “DUH!”
You can’t argue when the Cinema Evaluation Board just gave them a Film Rating of “A,” can you? :p
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