Premiering in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at Sundance, Filipiñana [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film], the debut feature by Rafael Manuel, expands the director’s 2020 short of the same name into a 100-minute exercise in visual control that, for all its formal polish, struggles to justify its own duration and ambitions.

The most immediate issue is pace. The film is incredibly slow and often feels like a short concept stretched far beyond its natural limits. Long takes and wide, static compositions dominate, ostensibly inviting contemplation, but in practice, they reinforce a sense of stasis that quickly becomes frustrating. What may have worked as an atmosphere-driven short here turns into a test of endurance, with scenes lingering well past the point of emotional or narrative payoff.

This temporal slackness is compounded by performances that remain curiously inert. Acting across the board is flat, marked by elongated pauses and restrained delivery that add little in terms of dramatic tension or psychological layering. Rather than creating unease, the silences frequently feel empty, as if the film is waiting for meaning to emerge on its own. The freewheeling, elliptical structure further complicates matters, making it unnecessarily hard to grasp what is, at its heart, a very basic story.

That story follows Isabel (Jorrybell Agoto), a young golf caddie at an exclusive country club, who becomes inexplicably drawn to Dr Palanca (Teroy Guzman), the club’s president. The film gestures towards a dark, shared history and buried violence beneath the club’s immaculate surface, yet these elements remain frustratingly abstract. Narrative clues are scattered, rather than being developed further, and the film seems oddly reluctant to articulate its own stakes.

Visually, however, Filipiñana is undeniably accomplished. Shot by Xenia Patricia, the film is beautifully crafted, with many images resembling carefully composed paintings. Actions are choreographed with evident precision, and the production design and costume work contribute to a meticulously controlled aesthetic world. As a purely visual experience, the movie is indubitably striking.

But beyond surface pleasure, there is little substance to sustain interest. For nearly 100 minutes – which feel considerably longer – the film fails to build empathy for its characters or genuine curiosity about their fate. The presumed satire or social critique, centred on class hierarchies and post-colonial power structures, remains largely theoretical. Yes, we may see a waiter subject to the authority of a supervisor, but the film rarely shows these power relations actively unfolding, shifting or being subverted. Instead, we witness ritualised gestures that merely echo established roles, without ever interrogating them in a meaningful way.

As a result, the political dimension that the movie seems eager to assert stays almost invisible, inferred more from the social status of the characters than from the dramatic situations themselves. The violence and control hinted at in the premise never fully materialise into lived experience on screen.

Ultimately, Filipiñana leads to an unrewarding ending, mirroring an overall viewing experience that feels curiously hollow. One is left with the nagging sense that if the same care devoted to the production design and cinematography had been applied to the writing and directing, the result might have been something genuinely memorable. As it stands, Manuel’s feature debut heralds the arrival of a strong visual stylist, but also exposes the limits of aesthetic rigor when not accompanied by narrative urgency or emotional depth.

Filipiñana was produced by Film4 (UK), Pōtocol (Singapore), Ossian International (UK), Easy Riders Films (France), Idle Eye (Netherlands) and Epicmedia Productions (Philippines). US-based outfit Magnify is selling the pic internationally.