BAKIT MADALAS ANG TIBOK NG PUSO? A Complex Love Story

Bakit Madalas Ang Tibok Ng Puso?

Danny Zialcita's quiet little drama entitled Bakit Madalas Ang Tibok Ng Puso? (Regal Films) is about Raquel (Liza Lorena), a wife who found out that her husband Adolfo (Dante Rivero) had a mistress, Mercedes (Laurice Guillen) and is embittered by the discovery. The daughter Anna (Janice de Belen) wants to confront the woman for the distress she has bought to the family and finds herself falling in love with the mistress' son, Ricky (Aga Muhlach). In summary form, the plot seems so simple but as the carefully crafted and psychologically nuanced screenplay unfolds the narrative, it turns out to be a complex love story as has seldom been told by Filipino filmmakers. But Zialcita has an enormous supply of creativity, craftsmanship and above all, heart as Bakit Madalas Ang Tibok Ng Puso? amply proves. And perhaps it is heart, an honest-to-goodness Filipino heart that is at the center of Zialcita's film. The characters and the actors who play them are handled with great sensitivity and insight. The unobstrusive but visually suggestive mise-en-scene in many revelatory moments attest to a cinematic eye that invariably endows those moments with emotional power. Notable too is the fine sense of timing and rhythm as the film cuts meaningfully from scene to scene.

The cast assembled by Zialcita for his movie is headed by the redoubtable Liza Lorena who plays the wife grievously hurt by her husband's infidelity. As the mistress, Laurice Guillen turns in a luminous performance admirable for its sensitivity and control in unfolding the perceptiveness and strength of a mature woman who fell for a married man. Aga Muhlach is a diamond in the rough, combining good looks with an introspectiveness that draws out without straining emotive resources that impress us with their honesty and spontaneity. As the reluctant infidel, Dante Rivero infuses his character with believable anguish that makes us accept his fallibility. When he leaves his wife, the remorse it reveals only serves to confirm the trepidations and hesitancies projected in Rivero's reading of his role. Janice de Belen as the headstrong daughter determined to keep her family together come up with moments that allow us to touch base with very real people. The fact that we are able to touch base with very real people in Bakit Madalas Ang Tibok Ng Puso? and we are moved by their attempts to sort out and accept the little joys and pains of their lives are reason enough to hope again that redemption from the rule of mediocrity and exploitativeness is at hand.

Directed By: Danny L. Zialcita
Story And Screenplay: Beybs Pizarro Gulfin And Danny L. Zialcita
Cinematography: Felizardo Bailen
Music: Ramon del Rosario
Editing: Nonoy Santillan
Produced By: Regal Films
Release Date: November 6, 1986