Palitan

Palitan is the latest movie I’ve watched courtesy of Vivamax entertainment. Vivamax is a streaming service specializing in Filipino entertainment. And it seems to have a bit of the same problem that lots of premium cable projects had in America. Namely, Vivamax allows or perhaps, encourages sexy content. Everything I’ve seen from this channel has had a notable emphasis on fairly explicit sex. But sometimes, like in the case of Palitan, that element doesn’t seem to vibe with the rest of the story.

The basic story of Palitan should lend itself well to tacking on some sex scenes. It’s about a woman named Marie engaged to be married to her fiance, James. But then, Marie’s old friend, Jen returns from Manila with her own partner, Al. Marie and Jen were more than just friends before Jen was sent to Manila. And even after years apart, there’s still chemistry and desire between the two. As the wedding date draws nearer, Jen and Marie’s affair becomes more and more flagrant and their feelings harder and harder to ignore.

So what went wrong? Why couldn’t this relationship drama about sexy young people manage to be a solid, sexy movie for an online streaming platform? Focus. Palitan feels extraordinarily unfocused. Usually, when films wander towards erotica or softcore, there is focus. And the focus is the sex, oftentimes at the detriment to the story. That’s not really Palitan’s issue. Though it certainly is a case where the sex scenes are easily the best shot thing in the movie. The editing is especially sharp for these scenes of naked bodies writhing about. And the blocking is great too! This is a film that really does know how to position and choreograph a sex scene. The rest of the movie when people aren’t having sex? Meh.

Really, the problem is that Palitan is full of deeply unsexy padding. Some of it is boring. We spend a lot of time meeting a seemingly endless members of Marie’s extended family. None of whom have proper story arcs and all of which takes time that could’ve been spent developing its main characters. And at least one of these subplots is particularly unsexy. Marie’s sister has an abusive husband. She arrives crying to Marie’s father, who lets she and her children stay the night but says that her marriage is her responsibility to fix. There’s no happy resolution here. It’s just a very depressing subplot about how marriages can be hell for women and that there’s not any support to get them out of abusive situations. One scene in this subplot cuts directly to a lengthy sequence involving strippers and ultimately, group sex. That changeover is jarring!

Palitan can’t seem to decide what genre it is or who its audience is. There’s more going on here than the stereotypical cinemax skin-flick meant for men to jerk off to. There is story and social commentary too. I think there’s also an attempt to appeal to both men and women. The nudity and objectification in the film definitely leans more towards women, but not exclusively. And some of the scenes between Marie and Jen, especially scenes that are seductive but not fully sexual are a shade above a lot of pretty male gaze-focused depictions of sapphic women. But again, this all feels unfocused. Not necessarily because of the equal opportunity nudity. I’m in favour of that. But more broadly, I don’t know this movie’s audience is or what mood the film wants to inspire.

Ultimately, Palitan’s attempts to be more than a silly piece of softcore might have doomed it. So much of the story does not mesh with the film’s detours into sex scenes. And much as I want to respect the attempt to bring depth to erotica, it feels more like it’s the other way around. This might have been a half-decent drama but then sex scenes were added on. But even disregarding the sex scenes, the drama doesn’t hold up strong enough for that element to work either. So basically, nothing works. But there’s an attempt at something here which I find intriguing, even though the film isn’t a winner.

Overall rating: 3.1/10

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