‘Ang Larawan’ – A dark horse in MMFF 2017 A dark horse is someone who surprise others with their skills or talents, someone who unexpectedly wins a competition, films like Ang Larawan is very unusual in the MMFF. The film is a dark horse in this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF), this one is a musical compilation of everything beautiful about Old Manila and Filipino theater. Despite being snubbed at the initial MMFF screening,  Ang Larawan finally stand out because of its outstanding musicality and scoring.

The film’s beautiful score is translated wonderfully on screen, with the smooth and continuous transition between music and dialogue despite being composed to be more like an opera. The film was considered as a dark horse in this year’s MMFF because the movie is so out of the box that it’s easy for some to dismiss it as being “not commercial” despite the star-studded cast.Paulo Avelino has musical debut in this film. Paulo doesn’t have any theater background but he wants to try something new. The actor went through almost 3 months of vocal training to prepare for his role in the film. Another reason that the film was called a dark horse because it was pulled out in some other cinemas because the movie genre has no audience in some part of the country despite of that issue the film wins big at MMFF ‘Ang Larawan’ is one of the best films of the Philippine Movie Industry.

This film is a gem for Filipino cinema. Ang Larawan can be described as being the most different, most unusual of all the 8 finalists that made it into this year’s festival roster, it can take you back to the old times which is the classical era. I would even go as far as to say that this type of film has never been done. ‘Ang Larawan’ encourages the new generation to give the musical a chance.Watching the movie will give a new perspective and a much better understanding of the culture of Filipinos. The film was the product of years of preparation and the struggle for perfection, it was an ambitious project and they willingly took the risk.

Regardless of the time and expenses, the cast and producers gave their effort and everything that they could for the sake of creating a masterpiece. Despite the hardowrks of the cast and the producers there are still bad reviews for the said masterpiece. Some people just can’t appreciate a good film for them to say that the film was so dull, maybe they can’t appreciate a musical film and they didn’t get the goosebumps when listening to Ryan Cayabyab’s good music. Some may say the the film reveals the plot seemingly slow at first but the drama escalates until the astonishing finale combined with a good story telling and excellent cinematography.

Actually, This movie is the only Filipino film that have been rated A by the Cinema Evaluation broad To sum it up, the film was really great and considered a gem for Filipino cinema so it must be appreciated by Filipinos. But no matter the odds, The film was definitely done with hardwork and effort. Ang larawan is truly worth seeing.

Ang larawan should be a model of every Filipino Cinema that will be produced in the future, The film deserves to be appreciated by everyone.