Moral (BLU-RAY)

Four best friends are graduating from the University of the Philippines Diliman, their paths diverging in significant, if inevitable ways. Joey (Lorna Tolentino) bounces from lover to lover, couch to couch. Kathy (Gina Alajar), a mediocre singer, is intent on making it at all costs. Sylvia (Sandy Andolong) separates from her husband, while he sets up house with another man. Maritess (Anna Marin) gets married and sees her life reduced to the role of mother and housewife. Over the course of three years, the life of four friends intersects at the vanguard of wider societal changes. Unhurried, rich with character development, and unlike any ensemble in international cinema, Moral, the midpoint film in Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s landmark feminist trilogy, is often considered one of the best Filipino films ever made. Miraculously restored from near-unsalvageable elements in 2017, it remains an essential film for its bold structure and epic portrait of womanhood in the time of Martial Law. From anti-Marcos resistance to American culture creeping to new values being put in practice, Moral is a novelistic examination of an evolving Philippines society heading into the 80s with updated definitions.