If 'Apocalypse Child' were a novel, you would want to read and unread it over and over again for your pleasure. But since it's a movie, you'd probably want to watch and unwatch it over and over again not just for pleasure but  also for your soul.

The main premise of the film is centered on a guy named Ford (Sid Lucero) who is famous in his town in Baler because his mother says that when the 1979 classic movie 'Apocalypse Now' filmed in their location, she was sired and eventually got pregnant by no other than the director Francis Ford Coppola himself. (Guess how Ford got his name.) Ford didn't finish his education. He became a surfing legend in his town and ended up as a surfing instructor for a living.

He is the character that becomes a common pole for the intertwining of the fates of the other main characters in the movie.


There is his mother Chona (Ana Abad Santos) who got pregnant with him when she was 14 so she isn't that much older to be a regular parent. Apart from parenting issues, she must also be conscious of what the town has been talking about her all these years.



There is Ford's childhood Stanford Law-educated best friend, Rich (RK Bagatsing) who became their Congressman. As a child, he has been abused by his late father and he has hearing impairment.

There is Rich's trophy wife-to-be Serena (Gwen Zamora) who came to town with her fiance as they are getting married soon. She lost a child after giving birth when she was 14 as well. She takes surfing lessons from Ford.



And there is Fiona (Annicka Dolonious), a 19-year old girl who is visiting the town because of her sick grandma. She  ended up falling in love with Ford. Her youth, with her naivete, is her main issue.

It is beautiful, really, seeing how the ordinary lives begin and end everyday for these characters. You hear them talk to each other clearly but there are other elements in the film that also strike sometimes loud, sometimes subtle conversations - the crashing of the waves, the slide of the surfing boards, the effortless noon rays beaming to the ocean, the rustling of the trees as people walk on the pavements, the prints people leave on the sand just before the waves erase them, and the dreamy silhouette of the characters' bodies and faces when the sun embraces them on several frames.

If you want a film with a sophisticated plot that becomes complicated in the middle and gets fixed or solved in any justifiable manner at the end, then this might not be the film for you. This movie is not about a general story that needs a resolution. This is more about the people in the story whose lives are intertwined by the secrets they keep, the mistakes they chose to make, the regrets they want to run away from and the flaws they are unaware of. You see them laugh, make jokes, cry, beg, surf, run, walk, drown and rise up. Each action is a narration to think about. The story is not written on a paper of greater scheme but in each moment the characters find themselves and let go of everything altogether.

'Apocalypse Child' is a film that's supposed to make moviegoers feel bad but we end up feeling good instead. You don't leave questions about the movie even if it clearly does not resolve everything. You create answers to your questions because the film is not strict. It lets viewers make their own perspective.

This is what makes this film a work of art.