Atom Magadia's "Dagsin" was first shown as an entry in the 2016 Cinemalaya filmfest. While the film lost the Best Picture and Director to Eduardo Roy, Jr.'s "Pamilya Ordinaryo," it won Tommy Abuel the Best Actor in the festival awards. Since then, it had made the rounds of international film festivals and won more awards, including two best pictures and multiple other awards for acting, director, cinematography and costume design.
Now three years later, "Dagsin" finally makes its commercial debut on Black Saturday, which by no coincidence was a crucial day within the film's plot.
Judge Justino Razon had gone through a lot of physical and psychological torture during his long and checkered life. He was a survivor of the Bataan death march as a young idealistic soldier. He was a survivor of an assassination attempt during the Martial Law years when he was a crusading lawyer. While his two legs may have been paralyzed by a bullet in the spine, he still went on to become a well-respected judge.
His main motivation to live had been Corazon, a spirited daughter of an American soldier and his Filipina wife, who had been the Judge's wife for 50 years. Corazon had been the source of the Judge's inspiration through the years. When Corazon (Marita Zobel in a rare screen appearance) succumbs to cancer, Judge had to rely on the kindness of his adopted daughter Mercy (Lotlot de Leon) and his nurse Grace (Sue Prado) for the activities of his daily living. With ghosts of the past catching up on him as he read Corazon's diaries, will the atheist Judge have enough reason to go on living?
Veteran actor Tommy Abuel had long been recognized for his acting skills. His turn as the paraplegic judge dealing with various traumatic experiences from his distant and recent past must have been one of the heaviest acting challenges of his career. Being confined in movement to his wheelchair or bed, Abuel had to rely on his face to convey his inner turmoil which led him to contemplate his mortality. His best scene was an unexpectedly unabashed breakdown at his wife's deathbed which alone could have won him the awards.
There was an effort to recreate the more genteel late 1930s and wartime early 1940s with the costume designs of Jonah Ballaran and the production design of Cyrus Khan. The younger Justino and Corazon were played by Benjamin Alves and Janine Gutierrez. Gutierrez in particular was perfectly cast as Corazon with her classic beauty and youthful verve. The face-to-face "Game of Destiny" confrontations between Justino and Japanese officer Tanaka (Yoshihiko Hara) were intensely scary even if you already knew the outcome.
Even with its lengthy talky expository scenes, there were details in the lives of the main characters which were still never fully expounded upon. I was hoping to see more of the Martial Law action rather than just stories read out of a diary or told over dinner. There were no scenes saying why Judge and Corazon never had children of their own, even if there was a scene establishing that they wanted to start a family.
Writer-director Atom Magadia definitely poured out his passion for philosophy throughout his ambitious opus. The elements of a good cinematic drama were all there, more imaginative execution (to circumvent its budget limitations) and more judicious editing could have helped come up with a more engaging film. The obscure Tagalog word "dagsin" used in the title means "gravity" in the physics sense. In this film about the heavy ethical choices Judge made in his life, it was a metaphor for gravity in the moral sense. 7/10.
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