02/04/2025 - Morgan Knibbe’s film explores Manila’s youth, trapped in poverty, crime and postcolonial exploitation, through stunning cinematography and a non-judgemental narrative

Dutch director Morgan Knibbe, in his second feature after the documentary Those Who Feel the Fire Burning, delves into the lives of young Manila residents seeking a better future and depicts unfortunate postcolonial patterns in The Garden of Earthly Delights, an exquisitely put-together film that relies both on a strong story and on astonishing cinematography by Frank van den Eeden. The film screened in the Grand Jury Fiction section of Movies That Matter.

Eleven-year-old street boy Ginto (JP Rodriguez) makes a living by dealing drugs (which he also consumes) and partakes in gang life, where violence rules. Meanwhile, his sister Asia (Francesca Dela Cruz) is trying her best to get out of the country and engages in sex work, a common practice in the suburbs of the city. Dutch tourist Michael (Benjamin Moen) is in the Philippines to look for his online girlfriend, whom he’s been supporting and to whose child he’s been sending gifts. Disappointed after not finding her, he ends up in a whirlwind of perdition, where he discovers the titular twisted “garden of earthly delights”, hidden in the most obscure of places. He will cross paths with Ginto, exposing the blurred moral boundaries that are inherently involved in the common practices taking place in the country.

The Garden of Earthly Delights is a superb rendition of a painful story, based on a reality where Western capitalism forces the young generation in exploited countries to seek salvation and a means of escape in all the wrong places, as there is no easy way out of their situation. Not only do the economic and social conditions not allow them to live the life they should be granted, but the sex tourism of people coming from the West, represented in this case by Michael, also forces them to look for money in exchange for physical favours, which in almost all cases cross the line and become human rights violations.

The script, written by Knibbe himself together with Roelof Jan Minneboo, allows the audience to enter this world without passing judgement, while at the same time, it provides an incredibly realistic and moving approach to the feelings of its characters as they progress through the story. It makes it possible to feel pity even for a debatable character like Michael, which is an extraordinary achievement, as it would have been much easier to simply position the characters within a good-versus-bad dichotomy.

Not only is the quality of the storytelling very high, but the technical aspects are also deserving of praise. The film’s striking visuals, with its vibrant colours and meticulous compositions, stand out in every scene. The editing, curated by Xander Nijsten, is key to capturing the pace of the characters’ lives, which feel simultaneously extremely slow, as they are still somehow “caged”, and fast-paced, because their existence unfolds through a series of intertwined events that keep the film flowing smoothly.

The Garden of Earthly Delights is a Dutch-Filipino-Belgian co-production staged by BALDR Film Amsterdam, Popple Pictures and Czar Film & TV Brussels. Its world sales rights are still available.