From Erwin Romulo's column:
Oro Plata Mata (Peque Gallaga)
They just don’t throw parties like they used to – at least not in Philippine cinema anyway. Nowadays, they’re just an excuse for a climactic confrontation wherein only the main cast seems to have really been invited and the extras are left pottering about in ill-fitting fashions the art director managed to collect from the same warehouse since the 1980s. But in Gallaga’s solo debut as director, he pulls us right in by throwing the most opulent bash to usher us into the world of 1941 Philippine aristocracy. It is the birthday of Margarita, grandchild of Don Claudio Ojeda, and she is waiting for the news about her fiance who is fighting in Bataan. The patriarch himself steals away from the party to confer with a member of the guerilla movement of which he is a supporter. Outside, the younger sister Trining is experiencing her first kiss with Miguel, the son of her mother’s best friend, Inday Lorenzo. There’s dancing and even the kids are getting a taste of the fine wine of the bourgeoisie; "the war will only last two weeks," everyone reassures themselves. Even with the news of the sinking of the Corregidor, a passenger ship with friends and relatives, the musicians are told not to stop playing.
With his experience as a production designer for directors like Ishmael Bernal (on his masterpiece Manila By Night) and Eddie Romero, Gallaga shows his strengths with telling detail and meticulous visuals that chronicle with acute observation the lives of two clans. Forced to hide in the mountains to escape the Japanese, they try to forget the reality of war by indulging in their normal pastimes like mahjong and playing records. It does not take long for the brutality to intrude on their rural sojourn, making them confront the horrors of the conflict through the faces of those around them who – until then – they did not see. Clearly, Gallaga is not painting an Amorsolo picture: the rural idyll backdrops are abruptly slashed, and the characters are left to wander the stage in a crepuscular but unforgiving light.
"The war has made animals of us," Trining spews out in the film’s finale. The setting is another party, a more modest one perhaps but still a celebration. Nonetheless, we can only thank Gallaga and his collaborators for the invitation.
