Just Another Woman in Love

When I hear the term "a different kind of love" being used by gays and lesbians, I always wonder if they realize they're short-changing themselves by branding their love "different" when the truth is, love is love. I don't know who coined this term to describe homosexual relationships, but I think it makes the waters of gay love murkier for heterosexuals like me who wish to understand.

Written and directed by Connie Macatuno and co-written by Chris Violago, Rome and Juliet is one of last year's most controversial independent films. It tells the love story of two women whose latent lesbianism is awakened when they enter each other's lives. A Cinema One Original, it premiered November 2006 at the Cinema One Originals Digital Movie Festival and earned a best actress award for Mylene Dizon.

Mylene's portrayal of the open-minded, flower-arranging, wedding coordinating, captivatingly hot Rome is a breakthrough performance. Andrea del Rosario is no lightweight either. As the ideal daughter, girlfriend, and pre-school teacher Juliet, she reminds us that she's not just a Hot Babe, she can also be a very sensitive actress. Rafael Rosell as Juliet's fiancée is also a revelation. The rest of the cast, Tessie Tomas, Glydel Mercado, Miko Palanca, Lui Villaruz, Joshua Deocareza and Crispin Pineda, turn out great performances as well.

Rome and Juliet tells the story of two initially straight women who fall in love. Wholesome Juliet is engaged to Marc, a city hall councilor with bigger political ambitions. The more liberal Rome is involved in a passionate but casual affair with a friend. They bump into each other in church, become friends, and Juliet hires Rome as her wedding coordinator. A love montage later and you can already cut the sexual tension between them with a knife. With this tension's consummation follows an unraveling of lives-lesbian love, after all, is still a societal taboo.

It's a brave film, both in terms of execution and subject matter. Juliet is also a poet, and part of her confusion is expressed in lyrical Filipino poetry by way of voice-overs. Performance poetry is also part of their love affair. It is in an artsy café, after Rome volunteers for Juliet to read a poem, that someone with a highly-tuned "gaydar" vocalizes the idea of their coupling by asking them, "Are you a couple? Alam ninyo, bagay kayo. You should be." And it is in the same café that they both "out" their love for each other.

It's a little disappointing that the movie used a montage in showing how Rome and Juliet start to fall for each other. In a quick succession of scenes, it's shown that they're both sweet to each other, they both make playful flirty comments, and they generally have a good time. But surely there's that one time where one of them, especially Juliet, first felt the electricity and freaked out? They think they're straight, after all, with fairly active sex lives, and I believe the first hint of sexual attraction towards the same sex triggers even a slight questioning of identity. Nobody just falls into something like this-it takes a surrender.

All in all, however, Rome and Juliet succeeds in showing that there is really is no such thing as "gay" love-men who love men and women who love women don't love in any way that's different from men who love women and women who love men. The same love calls on the same hearts, and when it does, you follow.

Rome and Juliet is currently being shown only at the IndieSine Theater at Robinson's Galleria in Manila, but it will probably be available in DVDs. Let's hope it has theater runs in other parts of the country.

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