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EL CIELO ABIERTO (TEN DAYS WITHOUT LOVE)

          Whoa. It’s confirmed. The new ingredient that engaging films have is…a shattering truth involving the lead character’s father. Look at George Lucas’s Star Wars, Ang Lee’s The Hulk and The Expandable Shorts, Mike de Leon’s Kisapmata and errr…Yam Laranas’s Balahibong Pusa. Is the latter too engaging you forgot that Rica Peralejo’s character has an incestuous affair with her father, Julio Diaz? I understand. Something else was highly publicized, and I suppose your eyes swelled out not out of shock after that 30-second revelation of their disgusting affair. Now here’s Luis Miguel Albaladejo’s El Cierto Abierto, a Spanish tale of a psychologist whose wife left him for his own father’s love. Engaging? Highly.

          This might be a typical rich-man-found-a-poor-girl and I’m-brokenhearted-until-I-found-someone-new love story but what kept my mentally inactive self glued to my seat is how the film punched my gut once in a while with the question, “Will you tell the truth?” If you were in Miguel’s (Sergi Lopez) position, would you tell the truth to your mother-in-law that her daughter ran off with her father-in-law to Tokyo for a honeymoon? Assuming you’d say yes, how? If you were still in Miguel’s position, your ex(?)-wife calls you up and inquires about her mom and you have promised to the other lady that you won’t admit she has a serious illness, would you tell the truth? Assuming you’d say yes, how? If you were in Jasmina’s (Mariola Fuentes) position, would you tell the truth that you have developed a feeling beyond attraction to Miguel after you eavesdropped to his phone call with his cheating wife and he’s willing to take her back as if nothing happened? Assuming you’d say yes, how?

          Usual viewers of love stories emerge of the movie houses teeming with romantic thoughts. Sure, I still remember the funny dialogues but I was more occupied with thoughts of coming up with a screenplay that has a shattering truth involving the lead character’s father. I was thrilled, knowing that I haven’t heard or read of such as a formula in films.

          Now, wait a minute. Am I the first or the last to know?