Halaw (Cinemalaya Film Entry 2010) movie review

Free-passes is never a legal thing in almost everywhere. When you attend concerts, tickets will let you in. When you are to enter a group of people, initiations are required. On redirecting for your networking account passwords are your keys, and the movie "HALAW" is an example of "free-illegal-passes" entering a certain territory.

Halaw is term which means "DRIVEN-AWAY", the movie was then about people who were driven away to do something that they think would benefit them.

Badjao, a group of people from Jolo, was featured in the movie. They wanted to escape and seek for greater opportunities outside their own country, but the thing is, they cannot afford to have an extravagant, luxurious and legal trip to reach Malaysia, the place that they thought is their "Promised Land".

Though aiming for one goal, all of them had their own specific agenda. There were individuals such as human-trafficker, a long-time hostess, two young children; a girl and a boy who were looking for their mother.

The story was actually adopted from what was really happening today. If we just open our eyes, be  more observant, try to hear harder and be sensitive enough we'll realise that this was just a common dilemma we have in the Philippines right now. The poverty shown in the movie is not exaggerated or over shown, it was real.

Lights were impressive for me, the angles were simple yet gave impact on the movie.

Sound effects were perfect, the intense and the power were very much felt.

The language used was Badjao, and the subtitle was poor, the words were late to be viewed on screen but it challenged the audiences to distinguish the characters, to be more attentive on what the actors were saying, and most of all it confused the audience that made the movie more interesting.

Too short for a full-length movie, but "HALAW" , very short lines, but strong personalities, and the convincing powers of the actors, the dirty scenes which made it more natural and real, very simple script and predictable somehow but facial expressions intensifies every scenes. These were just some of the reasons why this film is something that we should be proud of.