October 20, 2023
Libay (Maui Taylor) was the owner of a pottery business. and a single mother to her daughter Abigail "Ging" (Aiko Garcia), who was a senior high student. One day, while Ging was waiting for tricycle driver Gabo (Aerol Carmelo) to take her home, she met a handsome older man in the waiting shed on whom she had an instant crush. That friendly man was Jeric (Matthew Francisco), a missionary, who just so happened to be her mother's new boyfriend.
Direk Bobby Bonifacio has had several projects under Vivamax before, of varying quality. The best so far had been dark comedy "Bula" (2022) (MY REVIEW) and bizarre horror "Kahalili" (2023) (MY REVIEW). With a brazen title like "Haliparot," I was ready to dismiss this new film as just another forgettable one. However, it surprised me a lot. I cannot deny that the look and feel of this movie was of prime quality for Vivamax standards, one of its best.
Bonifacio took this project very seriously and its showed. The cinematography was clean and classy-looking, as with the editing, even of the sex scenes. The musical direction was also excellent, with moans of ecstasy mixed into the instrumental soundtrack. The use of the 2019 song "Delikado" by Marion Aunor to accompany one critical sex scene between Ging and Gabo on a tree trunk (seriously!) was quite apt.
There were two remarkably prolonged sex scenes here. One was a 7-minute-long scene of Ging fantasizing in bed about the charming stranger she met and the handkerchief he lent her. Another was a 6-minute suspenseful sex scene with Ging and Jeric were going at it in the bathroom, just when Libay came home unexpectedly from her trip. The editing and musical scoring work in these two scenes deserve commendation.
As Libay, Maui Taylor is the veteran here and she proved that she can still live up to her 20-year-old title of "pantasya ng bayan" (or "national fantasy") even up to now. In her first lead role, Aiko Garcia was able to perfect that ideal mix of schoolgirl naivete and unsuspecting seductress in Ging. Even if she is 23 in real life, she is playing a 17-year old realistically, making her intimate scenes with older Jeric very uncomfortable.
Fresh from his praised performance in "Patikim-tikim" (2023), Aerol Carmelo is a promising young actor to watch. During Gabo's confession scene, Carmelo was able to squeeze out tears and emotion never seen from him before. In his first major film role as Jeric, Matthew Francisco was able to subtly transition convincingly from a kind, bible-toting minister to a despicable sexual predator, which was no mean feat for a neophyte actor.
Even if I would include this film among Bonifacio's "best-of" list technical-wise, I would have to take exception to his topic of corruption of minors, which was quite deplorable. It was most unsettling, and felt absolutely dirty to watch, as it even escalated to outright rape at the end. That Jeric had to be a missionary, made him even more heinous, as he hypocritically took the Lord's name in vain repeatedly, all in the name of Bonifacio's idea of black comedy. 7/10
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