The Natural Phenomenon of Madness

It’s hard to say exactly what triggers the split. One night they were having sex, he was taking her roughly and she wasn’t enjoying it. (She later thought of it as a rape.) Next morning, as usual, he left without a word. That evening she decided to cut her hair very short, and threw him out. He needed her blood (he required regular transfusions and she shared his rare-ish blood type) but she was unforgiving. ‘Tell your new girlfriend to call me when you’re dying.’ That’s what she said when they met in the park some time later. Charliebebs Gohetia cut his teeth as editor on Brillante Mendoza films and turned director a couple of years ago to make a feature about drag-queen beauty pageants, a kind of grunge Priscilla. This second feature is something else again, a beautifully stylized meditation on what we think about when we’re in a relationship and having sex. It’s in two long chapters, titled ‘She’ and ‘He’, giving both antagonists equal weight, and is coolly shot in monochrome widescreen. It’s radically unlike any other Filipino indie movie you have ever seen, and it’s mesmerizingly grown-up. –BFI