Dagsin (Gravity) is one of the 9 entries at Cinemalaya’s 12th year, themed “Break the Surface”. Starring Tommy Abuel, Benjamin Alvez, Janine Guttierez, Sue Prado, Marita Zobel, and Lotlot Deleon, Dagsin centers on the struggles of the present-day Justino (Abuel) as he deals with the gravity of his past that keeps haunting him after his wife Corazon (Zobel) died.
As he reads his late wife’s tell-all diary, he’s reminded of his failures, nightmares, and past judgments – carrying them as burdens of his existence.
As dark as it may seem, Dagsin enlightened us with life lessons we can all reflect on:
(Warning: This article discusses some details of the plot and other elements of the film – may contain spoilers.)
- Love isn’t always like a fairy tale that ends “happily ever after.”
Dagsin perfectly shows, through Justino and Cora, that love stories doesn’t always necessarily have happy endings. Their journey through life has been paved by hardship — they survived a war together, got married, experienced martial law, and got separated finally by death.
- The struggles that we go through life are both our strength and weakness.
Justino endured World War II, Martial Law, his wife’s passing, and the pain of living every day without her. It made him strong enough to keep living yet it’s also the reason why he wanted to let go and give up.
- We survive because we have a reason to.
For Justino, his wife Cora was the reason he survived everything he’s gone through. He built his world around her that when she died, he felt like he also lost his will and reason to live.
- Often, our past shapes who we are in the present – and in the future.
Dagsin intertwines the past and the present as Justino reminisces memories through Cora’s diaries. He used to be someone who had a positive outlook in life, a believer, until war came like a hurricane that destroyed everything and left him in pieces.
- The sad thing is, sometimes our past damages us.
The film opens with Justino pointing a revolver to his head — playing the “game of destiny” that was later revealed as the way he bargained his life when the Japanese caught him during the war. Every day he fights a battle of his personal demons that questions his existence.
- There are things and people in our lives that keep on pulling us — the gravity that keeps us grounded.
For Justino, his wife always keeps him grounded when everything around him and his thoughts feel like dust floating in the air; and his beliefs, principles, and tragic past experiences starts to devour him. His love for his wife is the gravity that pulls him all together when it seems like he’s about to lose it.
- We have to know when to let go.
“Please accept His will and let me go.” Cora’s last words kept echoing inside Justino’s head ever since her passing. His undying love for her made it so hard for him to let her go and every day he yearns to be with her again.
- We make critical choices and judgments that we wish we didn’t have to.
Probably one of his life’s greatest irony is that Justino is a venerated Judge who decides and sentences people’s lives according to the law – a job that reflects certain memories from his past that he probably wish he could just forget.
- Accepting and realizing that we all need someone who will be there for us.
No matter how bad Justino treats Mercy (Lotlot De Leon), their adopted daughter, she still tries to show compassion towards him since she vowed to her Mama Cora that she’ll take care of him. Even if he never treated her like his own daughter, she understands how hard it is for the old man to be alone after his wife died.
- And maybe all we need is a little bit of faith and the will to keep going.
The gravity of everything Justino went through, especially when Cora died, made him question everything he believed in and his faith in God. With his undying love for his wife, he holds on to that little faith that he’ll be with her again in the afterlife.
Tommy Abuel’s spectacular acting in Dagsin earned him his very first Best Actor award at the Cinemalaya 12 Awards Night last August 14 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Dagsin was screened at CCP and Ayala Malls Cinemas (Glorietta 4, Greenbelt 1, TriNoma, Fairview Terraces , U.P. Town Center, Solenad and Ayala Center Cebu) during Cinemalaya 12’s run on August 5-14.
