NUNAL SA TUBIG (Ishmael Bernal, 1979)
The late master filmmaker's most meditative piece on life and death set in a dying fishing village where the waters are polluted and the folks are not fine. It finally took me second viewing to appreciate it, league and line it up along with MANILA BY NIGHT, HIMALA & HINUGOT SA LANGIT. And yes, the film could start a violent dispute regarding art and aesthetics.
The passionate romantic liaisons between the two seductive barrio lasses Elizabeth Oropesa & Daria Ramirez and the man between them, the local stud George Estregan, the religious services, the midwives, the whirring sounds of motorboats' engines........Bernal still finds life. Done in collaboration with scriptwriter Jorge Arago, Bernal's real-life soulmate, this could be possibly his purest cinema, quiet, experimental, intelligent and cinematically speaking.