'Cleaners': A coming-of-age tale that understands why high school is rough

To some, high school is its own cruel world as we try to navigate who we are in this phase where we are no longer children but not yet adults. We also have to deal with pressure from peers and adults who talk badly of us. We try our best not to make this experience entirely painful because we cherish those around us and make sure our surroundings don't taint our view of the world despite how dirty it is.

That’s what director Glenn Barit's critically acclaimed 2019 indie anthology film "Cleaners" is all about as it gained a cult following among Filipino cinephiles since its premiere in QCinema 2019. CNN Philippines declared it to be one of the best Filipino films of that year.

"Cleaners" opened this year’s Binisaya Film Festival on September 10. Reactions from the audience ranged from laughter to awe. While the film is set in the school year of 2007 and 2008 in Tuguegarao, Cavite, it feels universal, especially for millennials and Gen Z. We can’t help but recall our own high school experiences, both the good and the bad.

The film's biggest highlight is its visuals which has a distinct "Xerox" black and white cinematography with colored highlighters placed on the main characters.

To achieve this style, Barit and his team edited the entire film in color, exported it to eight frames per second and printed each of them in black and white. After months of manually colorizing 43,000 frames with highlighters, the scanned stills replaced the raw footage.

The visuals evoke a sense of nostalgia, reminding viewers of the reading materials they used to bring with them to classrooms. The dominance of black and white printed materials is perhaps the best way to remember our high school days.

The film is split into six chapters, most of which are named after school-themed activities. It starts and ends with the main characters (in their own colors) in a classroom together. In between, these characters have their own journeys.

In the "National Nutrition Month" chapter, a neat-freak girl tries to overcome her anxiety and disgust during a school project and an embarrassing incident. In "Buwan ng Wika", a classroom president is forced to work with her three rebellious "jejemon" classmates in a dance activity that they refuse to participate in.

In "Prom", two outcasts develop romantic feelings for each other amidst the gossip and double standards against one of them. The penultimate chapter, "SK", focuses on a son from a local political clan conflicted between family loyalty and his street-smart friend as he runs for SK Councilor.

The finale "Huling Araw" serves as an epilogue for the characters as everything comes full circle when he characters are revealed to be fourth-year students. It's up to viewers to surmise on why they are the only ones in the classroom on what is supposed to be their last day as high schoolers.

There is something cathartic in what they did in the ending -- acting out on our fantasies where our most chaotic feelings come out without judgment. It's something we were probably afraid to do in real life because our lives are not like the movies after all.

What helped "Cleaners" was the cast which were all inexperienced actors and residents of where the film was shot. If you are impressed by their performances, it's because we are watching actual teenagers living their own coming-of-age stories.

With laugh-out-loud scenes and thought-provoking moments, "Cleaners" give viewers a new way to look back on high school with insightful retrospection. The film showed how tough high school was for a lot of people. It validated our resentment on why being a teenager needs to be this hard. For a 2019 film set in 2007 and 2008, these stories feel timely in 2023 and beyond. Four and a half stars out of five.

You can watch "Cleaners" on the big screen again in Binisaya Film Festival tomorrow, September 16, 4 pm, at the University of the Philippines Cebu's Lawak Sinehan.