Donsol (2006)

User Rating:

8.9/10   

Director:

Adolfo Alix Jr.

Writer:

Adolfo Alix Jr. (writer)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

About two lonely people who met during the whaleshark watching season in Donsol, Sorsogon.

Plot Keywords:

Underwater Scene | Whale Shark | Cancer | Tour Guide | Fishing Village

Awards:

6 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Sid Lucero	...	Daniel
Angel Aquino	...	Teresa
Cherie Gil	...	Mars
Jacklyn Jose	...	Ligaya (as Jaclyn Jose)
Bembol Roco	...	Fidel
Simon Ibarra
Kenneth Ocampo	...	Daniel's friend
Aaron Junatas
Erika Luna		(as Erika Anne Luna)
Mark Gil
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tony Barker-Benfield

Runtime:

Philippines:105 min

Country:

Philippines

Language:

Bicolano | Tagalog | Filipino

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Filming Locations:

Donsol, Sorsogon, Bicol, Luzon, Philippines

Company:

Bicycle Pictures

Trivia:

Philippine's Official Submission to the Best Foreign Language Film Category of the 80th Annual Academy Awards (2008).

There's a story here somewhere.

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I recently saw this at the 2008 Palm Springs International Film Festival. I thought this might be an interesting romantic story but I think I would have rather watched a 105 minute documentary on shark whales than have suffered through this sleeper. And shark whales are way down at the bottom of my list of things I want to learn about. I can't believe that this was the Phillippines official entry as Best Foreign Language Film to the Academy Awards. Either this was all they had to offer or they are trying to drum up more shark whale watching tourists. This movie plods along for about an hour with no sense of what direction it's going to take. Finally in about the last 45 minutes you get to the meat of the story but the story is so thin and implausible with an over-dramatic conclusion that's it not worth the wait. Daniel (Sid Lucero) is a young tour guide for tourist boat company that takes tourists out to watch and swim with shark whales. Daniel is also the town hunk in the sleepy little fishing village that has been turned into a tourist town. Teresa (Angel Aquino) is a recently widowed breast cancer survivor who is returning to the area, along with her journalist friend Mars (Cherie Gill), for the first time since her husbands untimely death. Daniel and Teresa become friends which eventually leads to a very brief romantic encounter. Actually two very brief romantic encounters but in the the first one Daniel can't handle his emotions and prejudices and it seems highly unlikely that there will ever even be a second encounter. Director/writer Adolpho Alix Jr. in his feature film directorial debut could have done so much more with a story of a breast cancer victim who has had a double mastectomy and has also lost the love of her life and a young man who has yet to find the love of his life. Lucero and Aquino are fine in their roles but they can't save this movie. I would give this low budget digitally filmed sleeper a generous 5.0 out of 10.