Tuhog is nothing less than an adult candy and a film enthusiast candy as well, a beautiful piece of sensitive issue framed in a captivating cinematography and honest interpretation of film as a media. The film tries to give a picture of how media particularly film manipulates real life and reel life. From the very start, it delineated to us how stories should be a commodity and therefore be consumed for the very superficial nature of media itself which is economical. The film proposes very important questions it interestingly didn't answer explicitly-- is it ethical to change some true to life stories into something that is more viable to commercial audiences? Are the hundred thousand peso payment and name censorship enough to protect the emotional vulnerability of the real people involved? Does seeing your story no matter how wicked the skeletons in your closet of secrets are in the splendor of silver screen enough because it subconsciously satisfies a fantasy over the phantasmagoric world of movies? The film answered no as suggested by the scene where Floring (Ina Raymundo) and Perla (Irma Adlawan) went out of the theater and didn't finish the movie based on their story anymore, though the accomplishment of the 'Hayok sa Laman' speaks doses of how they had also been eluded into making their personal experience a cinematic one.
The structure of Tuhog is awesome, at the time revolutionary, very far from what quality films of Star Cinema looks like, such as Tanging Yaman. It is non linear, we experience engagement through numbers of flashbacks without conventional filmic techniques on doing a flashback just like fading in to white or the close-up to extreme close-up shots to suggest flashbacks. It is a film watching another film about the film. It is different from a film within a film where the movie is really about making a film, or the behind-the-scene movies making it unique than any Filipino film ever made. It also has some documentary touches. The scenes where each character close to Floring have been interviewed create a huge impact on how Tuhog is seen as really a human story soon to be a movie story.
I am swept away by the cinematography. Striking angles and compositions, color palette, and movement producing an over-all tone of passion and innocence with highlighted intensity in many a genre both Tuhog and Hayok sa Laman can be identified. I commend the difference in the cinematography of Tuhog as oposed to Hayok sa Laman. Definitely, the latter's cinematography is more genius in terms of how lavish, warm and fantastic the look became but what is genius in the side of Tuhog is that it didn't try to look as dreamy as the other one. The realization is that Tuhog is the reality of Hayok sa Laman and therefore look as simple as one could perceive an ordinary day.
Where it fell short for me is the genre. The title itself honestly devastated me. I was a grade schooler before, who just like any other ordinary viewer and movie awards expectator, assumed a win from the favorite Tanging Yaman, but when I heard that a film entitled Tuhog had won I was like cursing how come a cheap sounding movie win for the much coveted award. Many years after, I experienced and learned how Tanging Yaman never had a chance to win over Tuhog at least in URIAN, though until now I can't really appreciate the title. There are a lot of possible canonical titles for the film to kick the five-lettered word to name a awesome film. The title really sounded off for me and the film deserves a better title. Hayok sa Laman on the other hand is perfect for the film inside. Parallel to this, I guess it would be a just treatment if the genre of Tuhog had been carefully done not to cross its border over the bold genre of Hayok sa Laman. What I am trying to say is that the film can leave all the 'boldness it can artistically handle to Hayok sa Laman and make Tuhog as purely a drama film. There are some points in Tuhog where I thought ambiguities in the genre occurred, like a couple of panty-pulling scenes that are not absolutely necessary but in any way touches the other film.
Tuhog generally is an intelligent masterpiece that needs to be watched and at least realized if not analyzed or criticized. It speaks volumes from the most famous product of human intelligence—communication through mass media. Also, it speaks volumes from the massive talent Filipino filmmakers have just waiting for a bigger and more liberal, honest, and unprejudiced audience.
