‘Kalel, 15’: Fusion of disturbing themes in must-see HIV drama

Eddie Garcia

There’s good reason why Jun Lana won the best director prize for “Kalel, 15” at this year’s Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia. For any filmmaker with less skill and experience, it would have been a daunting task to find a unifying focus for the cautionary drama’s fusion of disturbing themes.

But Lana confidently works his way through this complex balancing act so well that it’s easy to see how he makes one subject matter inform another.

Stringing its elements together to paint a bleak but thoroughly developed portrait of Kalel’s life as a composite of Philippine society’s increasing amorality is a significant feat that makes the movie, astutely detailed in gritty black and white, one of the year’s finest—an unflinching look at a Pinoy community on the verge of moral collapse.

From the problems that 15-year-old Kalel Fernandez (Elijah Canlas, in a career-making portrayal) faces on a daily basis, you’ll be reminded of so many people you know struggling to rise above self-inflicted woes.Their stories are familiar—from the healthy-looking but HIV-diagnosed young men who conveniently keep their illness under wraps and the lovestruck adults always in hot pursuit of unattainable love, to the cash-strapped individuals who will do anything (sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll) just to survive another day.The film builds on the freshness, energy and enthusiasm provided by its charismatic young lead, who makes it easy for viewers to see Kalel beyond the incurable disease that threatens his future. Elijah knows how to put his sensitivity and volatile temperament to good use without succumbing to the lure of showy caterwauling.

Elijah Canlas in “Kalel, 15”

The shaky home life of Kalel and his older half-sister Ruth isn’t just turned upside down by news that he has tested positive for HIV. It eventually crumbles when their mother, carinderia owner Edith (Jaclyn Jose), leaves them behind, hoping to ride happily into the sunset with her married boyfriend. Unfortunately, she has also left her kids with a lot of debts.

The situation goes from bad to worse when Ruth’s junkie boyfriend moves in with them, adding more problems for Kalel to deal with. The 15-year-old protagonist can’t ask George (Eddie Garcia), his biological father, for help because he isn’t just very old and sickly, he happens to be a… OK, we’ll stop there to avoid spoiling the rest of the story for you!

But Kalel’s troubles truly come to a head when his closest friends get wind of his illness—a “shocking” revelation that soon goes viral in school! What to do?

Lana chivvies the exposition into action with the kind of pacing that chortles with urgency. And, while there are elements of familiarity and predictability that permeate the story, the production manages to transcend its stock “bida vs kontrabida” characters that, in turn, benefit from storytelling beats that are well-worn and relentlessly compelling.

Jaclyn Jose

“Kalel, 15” is a must-see because it doesn’t just put the fear of God into its “careless” target audience—it’s a wake-up call that utilizes the power of cinema without chatty proselytizing.

Moreover, it shines the spotlight on the exigency of measures needed to address the alarming circumstances of the HIV epidemic in the Philippines, where HIV and AIDs cases have risen by 170 percent since 2010. We all need to do something about this before it gets worse. INQ