All Soul

Film review: Sonata

MANILA, Philippines - Sonata is a love story. It’s not, however, in the fashion of trite romances or histrionic telenovelas. No ear-splitting curses and slapping or irrational fits of jealousy disturb the senses. It’s a different kind of love story hardly shown in Filipino films.

Regina Cardena (Cherie Gil), an internationally known soprano who has lost her voice, drowns herself in despair and alcoholic drinks in the darkness of her room. People are afraid of her and call her madwoman. One day, her childhood chum and secretary Cora (Chart Motus), now separated from her husband, returns to Regina’s ancestral house with Cora’s 10-year-old son Jonjon (Chino Jalandoni). Soon, Jonjon is introduced to new friends like Ping (Joshua Pineda) and to the culture of Negros Occidental.

Regina doesn’t want to eat, go out, talk to anyone or even see her boyfriend (Richard Gomez). When she meets Jonjon curiously snooping in her room, she scolds him, but soon the fearless and innocent Jonjon wins her over. Then, she tells Jonjon about the stories of Puccini’s Tosca, Pinkerton’s Madama Butterfly, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Cherubini’s Medea. Soon, Regina plays a Mozart sonata; Jonjon and Ping take her out for a joyful cart ride in the fields; Regina watches the kids’ ball game; and Regina sings Song to the Moon, an aria from Dvorak’s opera Rusalka. Regina makes up with Cora and the help. Everyone is glad about the positive change in Regina.

Sonata juxtaposes light and shadow, day and night, fame and obscurity, wealth and poverty, leisure and labor, art and reality, family and community, sound and silence, life and death. And when loss happens, hope is not far behind.

Why the title Sonata? Maybe in contrast to the opera, which requires grand production design and a full orchestra and powerful voices, a sonata can be played in a chamber to a small audience, and appreciated even without words.

Directors Peque Gallaga and Lore Reyes do justice to the screenplay of Wanggo Gallaga. Everything in the film — from the brilliant acting of Cherie, Chart and Chino to the production design (Junjun Montelibano) and cinematography (Mark Gary) to the editing (Manet Dayrit) — shows the love between mother and child, between the natives and the province, and between friends, no matter the age gap and the class difference.

When everything else fails, there’s no one to turn to but to one’s family and loved ones. When the world seems to crumble, you can pray and return to your hometown, to your roots and start over. When you want peace, you can listen to the stars.

Sonata, a part of the recently-concluded Sineng Pambansa All-Masters Edition Film Festival of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), does all Filipinos proud. It gives this strong feel of Negros Occidental. It is all feeling without being mushy. It throbs with heart and soul. It is a voyage of remembering and moving on. It is one beautiful song to remember.