The Affair (2010)

It's not really fair to call this an affair.

This film is special, and special in a way not many non-Filipinos will really grasp, and that’s okay. The film brings us along a journey of love, hiding, and communism, if you would believe, that spans decades. Through these decades, we are given an insight on the politics and events that shape the Philippines from the late 60s to the dawn of the new millennia.

Jun (Lucero) is a budding idealist who strives for change in the time the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines was about to really go South. We see him struggle to fight for his political beliefs while going through the struggles of being gay in late 60s Philippines. We see him start an affair, though I’d prefer to call it a relationship, that lasts decades. In a way, Errol (Domingo) is his soulmate, and because of society being the way it was back then, the two go down a spiraling path that is wrought with a lot of pain and hiding; them hiding their love for each other. Errol gets himself married with kids to a girl who actually loves him more than he ever does her. Jun, on the other hand, goes through a plethora of relationships that don’t really ever go well, because deep down he knows that his heart only ever really belonged to Errol.

The main take, for me, is this. We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us; those who had to hide or get persecuted for just loving. No words can really describe how lucky we are, the younger generation, that we live in such a different era of acceptance compared to then. Though the fight for our rights are still going on in different levels around the world, we can never deny the difference a few decades has brought; what the hardships of generations past has brought for us.

In the end of everything, through that spiraling path they went through, life found them a way. In the end, love still won. Though time has robbed them of many years together, Jun and Errol are allowed to be together for the rest of their days.

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Excellent movie

In the beginning, I watched a "politically motivated" movie, the communist faction, and I thought that it wouldn't be for me. And damn it was.
You have to work your way through that beginning. Politics gradually disappeared from the screen during the story and the deep life story of Jun (the great Sid Lucero, whom I also know from the excellent Filipino film Selda) came to the fore, as I followed him gradually over the years and other main characters include Errol and Roland (here on MDL, these characters are not mentioned by mistake) and the other secondary roles are also etched in my memory. When I thought about the political development of the Philippines and watched the GAY LINE OF THE STORY in particular, and we all know that in the past people of minority orientation did not have it easy (often even today), it was quite a strength, a deep experience. I understand that, for example, older generations will be put off by the "communist" beginning and or the heterosexual gay line, when the actors had to submit to quite sexually explicit scenes (somewhere I'm confused whether the Philippine censors didn't even ban or cut out a part in 2010), which were very convincing, I didn't mind that the creators couldn't "age" Errol more towards the end of the film, it didn't detract from the deep story, after all, Errol's older son at the end of the film was actually a year older than his "dad". A really powerful experience for me and it's a shame that 13 years ago technology wasn't at such a high level and the film has an "old" look ...

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