Cinema is a powerful medium often used to communicate social issues. But when it fails to appeal to the viewer’s emotions, the message becomes lost. Especially today in the Philippines, where we get to enjoy artistic freedom free of government censorship, political or propaganda films can be as brave as they want — without sacrificing artistic merit.
Unfortunately, Joel Lamangan’s angry and preachy Oras de Peligro is a rushed, panicky job to educate the Filipino people with such urgency that it forgets artistic quality.
If in any way it stirs a viewer’s emotions, that would be because of the viewer’s already existing political worldview and biases. But watching with nonpartisan eyes? It’s a surprisingly amateur work from a veteran director.
Of the entire cast, only a few perform normally, such as the always-reliable Therese Malvar, Alan Paule, and Elora Espano. Most of the actors, which shockingly include the lead, Cherry Pie Picache, deliver terrible or amateur work, making it difficult to sit through the movie.
Picache is over-the-top and stagey. Her baby-crying scenes are particularly torturous to watch — she gasps her words in short bursts, but it is so fake it strongly calls to mind Kyle Rittenhouse’s famous crying on the stand during his 2021 trial.
No, it’s not the civil unrest of the film’s true-to-life backdrop, set in the few days leading up to the People Power, that feels bothersome, but its very neophyte performances and the condescending way it talks to its audience.
Oras de Peligro centers on a family from the slums in 1986, a few days before Marcos was ousted by a bloodless revolution. We find the mother, a simple-minded maid, Beatriz (Picache), complaining about her husband Dario’s (Allen Dizon) involvement in civil disobedience. She discourages political activism in her family, as a mother concerned about the safety of her household.
Her daughter (Malvar) is reading “dangerous books” — but has a framed photo on the staircase of herself flashing the peace sign (could she be a closeted Marcos supporter?).
But after Dario is brutally killed by a couple of corrupt Metrocom (who are idiots because they can very well take the money freely handed to them by Dario without shooting him in the heart), Beatriz gradually learns the value of justice and the need to fight against oppression.
Oras de Peligro alternates between footage, newspaper front pages, and amateur dramatization. The footage is something we have already seen countless times. The clips also mostly reveal the Catholic Church’s disregard for the separation of Church and State and its deep involvement in politics.
Lamangan and his screenwriters Bonifacio Ilagan and Eric Ramos made sure to cover all facets of Martial Law in the almost two-hour runtime — police brutality, poverty, prostitution, strikes — and speaks to the audience in an elementary fashion.
The film sometimes throws in debates between its characters, but designs the pro-Marcos characters to be incredibly ignorant and dull, therefore tipping the balance so hard that it loses its validity.
There are appearances of modern-day haircuts, skinny jeans, and shirts not fit for the era. Some of the women’s hair are dyed, proof that this movie disregards visual authenticity.
By the 40-minute mark, I was already suffering so bad from this seemingly grade-school movie project with a blubbering Beatriz (ironically, she is hyperventilating from distress, but her hands are very steady when she dials on the rotary phone). The juxtaposed footage is what helps your endurance, but one can just go to YouTube for this.
It’s hard to sympathize with Beatriz’s family as you barely know them. They are a one-note, caricature family used as both a narrative tool and a metaphor for the Filipino people under the Marcos regime. Beatriz’s character arc transforms from meek to “woke,” which is predictable.
The folks who go to EDSA People Power are a garden-variety lot: The legit angry, the miracle-pursuer who wishes to sell her suman, and those who are just simply in it for the excitement. This further weakens the film’s propaganda.
The cringey humor is weirdly incorporated through the wealthy group of Jessa (Mae Paner) and her minions, especially when they begin their lengthy “Mambo Magsaysay” dance number. At this point, I was already crying inside with despair.
Oras de Peligro both feels highly unnecessary, preachy, and poorly written, with one of the worst performances I have seen in Philippine cinema.
Its subliminal message delivered by Malvar’s character — that it’s not enough to get mad, but we have to take action — seemingly calls for a revolution today. One wonders why: Are we being oppressed today?
No one, I believe, is invalidating the experiences of the victims of abuses that happened during Martial Law, because those are not imaginary. A lot of activists and their families still carry their wounds up until today, and these will never be forgotten.
History does not necessarily repeat itself, and making oneself angry today, where one is free and unoppressed, can only be detrimental to one’s self.
There are better contemporary films that touch on Martial Law victims, such as the masterpiece Respeto (2017), and the okay ones, like Liway (2018) and Barber’s Tales (2013).
Oras de Peligro has no redeeming factor.
***
0 out of 5 stars
In Philippine cinemas
***
[Updated 11:46am] The author corrected her error regarding name of cast member: from Joel Torre to Alan Paule (who played the role of Bembol).