A Fillipino-Canadian family prays at an array of ruby red candles. The son in this frame is Joshua (Rogelio Balagtas). He lives a repetitive life, if one can call it that, with his elderly mother, Alma (Vangie Alcasid), and father, Reynaldo (Esteban Comilang), also pictured in the frame, in their tidy Canadian home. The devout trio’s routine typically includes attending church and a weekly dance class, meals, and in the case of Joshua, work. A shy loner who rarely makes eye-contact, Joshua is a custodian at a university wherein he turns down offers from co-workers to dine out only to dine alone. Everyday in his cozy bedroom, however, he faces the religious iconography of candles and figurines that decorate his dresser and prays to God that one day he’ll meet someone before his mother or father pass away. Because now nearing 50, he doesn’t want to be alone.
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But tragedy does indeed befall Joshua. His mother suddenly dies. And with his married brother Paolo (Pablo S.J. Quiogue) with his own wife and kids to care for, it looks as though Joshua will be left to aide his ailing father without ever being able to forge his own path in life. Luckily, however, he catches a reprieve when his cousin Marisol (Sheila Lotuaco) arrives from Kuwait. The pair have always been close, and it’s only inevitable that the lovesick Joshua will fall for her. So opens Martin Edralin’s charming yet familiar bi-lingual directorial feature debut — “Islands.”
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Edralin’s “Islands” features few stylistic flashes. No tracks, tils, or pans. Not even a canter angle. That’s by design. See, cinematographer Diego Guijarro’s camera is as stationary as Joshua’s life, but no less empathetic. Guijarro’s lens rarely looks down upon Joshua. Rather head on, so we might see his plaintive eyes whenever his head unbows for air. Editor Bryan Atkinson’s drawn out pacing is just as purposeful. As Reynaldo’s health continues to fade, in the days following Alma’s death that bleeds as slowly for Joshua as they do for us, we can feel his gaze searching for companionship. A bond he doesn’t find until he grows closer to Marisol.
Having a character as myopic as Joshua, however, does have its downsides. We are, for the most part, relegated to his family home. The few brief step-aways from the domicile include a trip to the grocery store, a dance class, church, and the hospital. If one were to measure out the time outside the home, it would scarcely add up to ten or fifteen minutes. In fact, you could imagine “Islands” being a play performed on a very intimate stage rather than a film. That’s partly because Joshua cannot imagine a life outside of his parents. And it’s only the presence of Marisol that forces him to explore the outside world. Still, coupled with the purposefully drawn out pacing, the equally desired monotony can lull the viewer into a sentimental dreariness.
If not for Balagtas’ low-key inward performance, we might be altogether lost. He moors us to this finely sketched character, a loner who one might liken to Ernest Borgnine’s “Marty,” if only he had friends. To work through Joshua’s simmering self-loathing Balagtas somehow finds a way to be both impenetrable and enveloping. His downcast posture, for instance, is enough for Marisol to know he’s more than shy. She sees his melancholic wrappings. It’s unfortunate, however, that Joshua rarely sees hers. Still, his fleeting wide-eyed joy entices us to believe that maybe, if he only spoke up, he could find the one, one day. It’s high-level nuance in a slight story.
More calamities befall Joshua, but to enumerate them would spoil the film. Instead, just know that Joshua cannot avoid the inevitable. And his crestfallen world tears one down to the studs, only for the glimmer of the film’s final shot to invoke a joyful tiny victory. The familiar beats of a man learning to thrive again aren’t enough to blunt the grounded pathos of this modest character study. Edralin’s “Islands” is a patient debut that reminds us that while our parents are important, our own happiness cannot be understated or ignored. In this sense, through its final seconds, “Islands” is a life-affirming achievement. [B]
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