Sa Silaw (Shorts B)

Rating:	★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Independent

SURREAL


Surreal, bizarre, weird – three words to describe Reinzi L. Balao’s Sa Silaw. But this silent flick is not your typical Chaplin-like, no dialog film. Its strangeness lets u think as you go along with it – and it may lead to boredom in some ways.

The flick’s offered unusual story is about a young lady named Selya (Katherine Gaytano), who lives in a two-sided, contrasting world. Her character personifies both good and evil beings: she preaches the Word of God on different buses on mornings, and transforms into a nocturnal prostitute afterwards. And the weird thing is that she tries to escape that reality by blinding herself, she focuses a flashlight directly to her eyes and one moment a flashback occurs. Sa Silaw has a really weird story.

Balao’s aim, whatever it was, did not actually capture the viewers’ for the attempt itself was dull as the movie goes along. The technique used was not effective, the approach was off, the idea was a mess, and therefore it was a no-no. It failed to let the audience understand and left their minds hanging, an indication that the whole silent flick was boring, uninteresting, and ineffective.

The sequence of events played a role of making the audience more bored. But the shots though were impressive, for the balance of lighting and contrast was done artistically. The musical score somehow managed to give more life on every scene, it even gave justice in some ways, but that was not a strong factor for the film because the whole packaging still went dull. Nevertheless, artistry was still seen on Balao’s silent flick.

Like Tolentino’s Orasyon, Sa Silaw was featured in a black and white format through out the film that may have triggered its dreary effect. But compared to Orasyon, this film was too strange that it came to a point of boredom, unlike in Orasyon where the black and white setting did go well and added an eerie factor to it.

The strangeness of Balao’s Sa Silaw happens to be the edge of this short, silent flick among others. But his intention, whatever it was, failed because of that edge. Needless to say, the film was really weird, bizarre, and surreal.