‘Rainbow Sunset,’ senior citizens
Credit to Author: MA. ISABEL ONGPIN| Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2019 17:09:32 +0000
STILL in a holiday mood, I chose to see a movie of the Manila Film Festival. “Rainbow Sunset” was my choice because it was basically about senior citizens. In fact, I feel there are not enough movies about senior citizens who are leading equally active, useful and colorful lives. There is entertainment in there and “Rainbow Sunset” proves it. Take it from this senior citizen.
As we already know, it is about two men who love each other from youth to old age. One marries, the other remains a bachelor. They live functional lives – the bachelor is a public high school teacher and the married one is a politician. In their retirement age when children are grown up and out of the house, leading their own useful lives, the ex-senator decides he will care for his friend through his cancer sickness. Should I have given a spoiler alert? No, every alert moviegoer already has the storyline.
The point is to see how it is done. And it is done very well indeed. There are three settings – the nearby but still unspoiled hometown of the bachelor living in his ancestral home with a provincial garden facing a quiet street. He has a nephew and his family who live downstairs and take care of him. The nephew sews basketball uniforms. No gender stereotyping here, this is a man who sews for a living.
The other setting is the ex-senator’s new and opulent home in a gated village in Metro Manila. Here Gloria Romero reigns as the doyenne of the house, wearing elegant caftans and looking regal. She has lived a marriage of three and loves the two counterparts in it, though differently.
The third setting is the small town where the ex-senator’s daughter is the mayor. Here is the utterly Pinoy political universe. She is, of course, called Mayora, the new and widespread term for a mayor who is a female. She has the power of a matriarch, again typically Pinoy. People come to ask for assistance, basic services, whatever is needed. Her husband is somewhat a drone, seemingly idle but has some hanky-panky affairs to augment his income.
The ex-senator’s children are of course concerned about their parents and how people view them. The Mayora because of her political weight, the son, who is an assistant assessor in a government office because of his defensiveness about his father’s too close friend. Only the third child, a girl belonging to the feminist group, Gabriela, has understood it all and accepted in her mind. Thus, the dynamics between them are one of the wonderful highlights of the movie, so well directed by Joel Lamangan. Pinoy values, social status, concern, debates, and, finally, love are on display.
Scene after scene bring the story forward in very carefully edited segments that do not drag, do not preach, just segue on to the next scene. Some are screamingly funny. In particular, the flighty secretary of the son who is an assistant assessor. She obviously cannot type or take stenography, just selfies. She succeeds in seducing him, somehow the episode goes viral on the internet and then the consequences come thick and fast. Wife moves out in a welter of balikbayan boxes, mother cries, guilty party gets drunk, siblings react by thinking of themselves first and condemning the other. Another scene which was so apt was the negotiation between the two lawyers, one for the secretary and the other for the assistant assessor to settle the matter. Not quite the tale of the president of a well-known nation and his high-flying fixer lawyer. More like two journeymen earning a living from a scandal that has to be smothered. One lawyer who seems quite unprepossessing shows she knows her job. The other lawyer is shiny-suited with hair combed over his bald pate, who puts the client on mute, as he takes over. It is almost pantomime but so exact, so authentic, that it connects with the audience.
All in all “Rainbow Sunset” is about Pinoy life, about us, about how we go through life’s surprises, vicissitudes, perils. Some of us somehow can manage to survive, or to triumph. That is why it rings a bell for senior citizens and those who love them.
Thank you, Gloria Romero, Eddie Garcia, Tony Mabesa, Aiko Melendez, Sunshine Cruz, Tirso Cruz and Joel Lamangan.
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