Metro Manila

I’ve never been to the Philippines, but I feel that things over there work pretty much like they do in this film. Metro Manila is simply an absolute human massacre of a movie. It’s definitely not an action or crime movie or a thriller as described here. I saw this movie as a fully proper Filipino drama with everything it takes. A family that came to Manila from the country is trying to survive in the metropolis somehow and the director is trying to present their arrival to the city in a raw and uncompromising, but at the same time human manner. There is no pathos in it, but you will still grow to really like them and so you will feel for them with every single minute. I don’t want to spoil the movie for anybody, but I had to brace myself in the last third of the movie so that I would get through all the shocks in the plot. I tip my hat to the creators – after a long time this was a drama that was actually genius in its simplicity and exoticness. (01/12/2015)

In God We Trust. A heavy social drama lightly crossed with a bleak crime storyline; it’s a combination that isn’t easy to handle. However, Ellis scores with the unusually mesmerizing to almost hypnotic genius loci and by gaining your sympathy for the characters in unrelenting (and candid) tour of the quagmire that is the dark side of Manila, doing the same for the local tourist industry as Elite Squad or City of God did for Rio de Janeiro. It’s been a long time since I felt such sincere sympathy as I did here. And thanks to suffered through it (in a good way) with the characters, the ending is powerfully emotional and genuinely moving. (15/04/2014)

After watching it, you are ultimately left with nothing to do but appreciate your good fortune and realize how ridiculous your problems are. But they're your problems, so they're not ridiculous. It's just that this movie makes them seem small. What the poet meant to say is that Manila is a mess and the Philippines, especially with a new president who's pulling with China and killing junkies, is not a destination, although you can get a lot for a lot of money there. A rough story. Certainly not based on one truth, but scraps that someone picked up while walking around town. Interestingly told. (18/11/2016)