‘Mrs.’ goes to Vancouver

ELIZABETH Oropesa (left) and Lotlot de Leon

Adolfo Alix Jr.’s “Mrs.” is in the lineup of the Vancouver International Film Festival in Canada, ongoing until Oct. 14. The best picture winner at this year’s Sinag Maynila fest, “Mrs.” is included in the Gateway/Dragons & Tigers section.

“Mrs.” features Lotlot de Leon, Rosanna Roces, Angeli Bayani, Anita Linda, Daria Ramirez, Sebastian Castro and Elizabeth Oropesa, as the film’s titular heroine, “a widow whose mind is usually elsewhere.”

According to the Vancouver fest website, the Gateway section allows viewers to “journey into the compelling cinematic worlds envisioned by some of East Asia’s most adventurous artists.”

Alix told the Inquirer that critic Tony Rayns programmed “Mrs.” in the festival.

Rayns notes in the fest’s site that screen veteran Oropesa, who won best actress at Sinag Maynila, has bagged her “best latter-day role” in the indie drama.

Oropesa plays a graying woman who is haunted by memories of her missing activist son (Castro), believed to be abducted by powerful men. She must also contend with the frequent pestering of a needy sister (Ramirez) and an equally troubled maid (De Leon)—along with the threat of an earthquake, because her decrepit home stands on a fault line.

Rayns pointed out, “There are distant echoes of ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?’” in the “powerful drama—especially in the central relationship” between the widow and her pregnant helper.

The critic related that “Alix is unusual among Filipino directors of his generation, much less committed to low-life melodramas than most and able to tailor his visual style to the specific needs of his subjects and scripts.”

In “Mrs.,” Rayns pointed out, Alix “opts for a slightly heightened realism with understated elements of fantasy. It’s not a horror movie, but there will be blood.”

The Vancouver fest, which aims to “celebrate excellence in screen-based storytelling,” is one of the “top five cinema events in North America, in terms of admissions and number of films screened.”

This year, the fest will showcase films from more than 70 countries on nine screens, including “the pick of the world’s top film fests and many undiscovered gems.”

The Vancouver fest is unique because it “features one of the largest selections of East Asian films outside of that region, along with Canadian movies and a vibrant documentary program.”

“Mrs.” will be screened on Oct. 9 and 12 in Vancouver.