It’s inevitable that parents pass on their taste, or lack thereof, to their children. For better or worse, my children have had to endure a pop culture menu top billed by Annie Lenox, The Clash, The Doors, Ella, Marvin, King, Spielberg, Star Wars, and Kubrick. I shudder to think of how watching their mother sing and dance to My Sharona may have forever affected their psyche.
Be that as it may, the cultural brainwashing continues to this day. Next to game night is movie night, where we’d scare ourselves silly watching one schlock horror film after another. We also have an affinity for post-apocalyptic movies and vampire origin ouvres. Confession: My sister and I had our kids watching Wesley Snipes’ Blade when they were very little, and had them dancing to that rave party where blood came out of the fire sprinklers. Yes, I know, we had probably ruined them for life.
My latest exploit is having my youngest son and my granddaughter sit with me through the premiere screening of the digitally restored and remastered Soltero, the 1984 film directed by Pio de Castro III with screenplay by Bienvenido M. Noriega, Jr, featuring Jay Ilagan, Rio Locsin, and Chanda Romero.
I had already watched this film but hardly remember the details. What I do remember was the feeling of having experienced something melancholy but beautiful.
My memory served me well.
Soltero takes us to the life of a single man trying to find love in 1984 Manila. Crispin, as played by Jay Ilagan, a childhood crush, seems deliciously naive. He’s hopelessly in love with Christina, as played by Rio Locsin, who herself is hopelessly in love with another man, the father of her child. While their romantic relationship has long fizzled out, at least on the part of Christina, Crispin still visits mother and child, and occasionally stalks them. Crispin so longs for somebody to care for and to be taken care of that he goes on to have a weird, one-sided relationship with Christina, where she always reminds him to get over her.
Crispin eventually falls in love with another, his immediate superior JR, as played by Chanda Romero. As it turns out, JR doesn’t have the least of romantic feelings for Crispin. Actually, she couldn’t because she prefers women over men.
It seems Crispin has a talent for seeking out impossible relationships.
In between, life goes on. Crispin’s mother falls ill, passes away. A barkada gets separated, another flies off to the Middle East. A sibling who lives abroad comes to visit even as another prepares to depart.
Everybody was in flux in the same way that the country itself was in flux. Ninoy Aquino was assassinated on the tarmac of the Manila International Airport the year before, and anti-government protests followed soon after from Ayala Avenue to Malacañang. That Crispin’s siblings were migrating was not a surprise because the economy was on a free fall at the time.
More than the story, what immediately caught our eye — my son is a graphic artist — was the detailed attention to how scenes were set and shots framed. We loved Crispin’s apartment with all the accoutrements of a man living alone: the stereo system, the aquarium, the easel waiting to be used. Manila as it was in 1984 had me longing for what once was, most specially during this longest lockdown. Another must-see is the play on shadows in the scene, shot at the Manila Film Center, when JR tells Crispin the truth about her identity.
In the last few minutes of the film, Crispin talks to the audience directly, in the guise of addressing his siblings living abroad, assuring us that he is fine, and that he is confident of finding his match in time.
It is heartbreaking because Crispin could hardly assure himself.
Why is it that we long for one special someone? Why can we not be content with our own selves?
Personally, I don’t believe in the Jerry Maguire you-complete-me school of thinking. I believe that I should be complete all by my pretty self.
But I do believe in what Susan Sarandon’s character said in the so-so 2004 Shall We Dance, when she talked about marriage.
She says: “We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet… I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things… all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness’.”
And what did the millennial and Zoomer think of Soltero?
A good movie transcends time and technology. It doesn’t matter whether it was shot in 1984 or 2020, a good movie would be a good movie, and the Gen X, the millennial, and Zoomer would like it.
Want to watch Soltero? Book your tickets here!
LULA LAND 
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