"KALELDO" is director Brillante Mendoza's follow-up to his multi-awarded and commercially successful "Masahista." Its Metro Manila exhibition opens on November 1, after its world premiere at the 1st Rome International Film Festival where it was the opening film in the Extra Section (October 13-21).

Kàleldo gives the viewer a glimpse of the nature of life. The film tells the story of a motherless family a decade after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo inundated the town of Guagua in Pampanga with lahar—a clear singular display of the force of nature.

Mang Rudy, the widowed woodcarver, wields an iron hand over his three daughters: the fun-loving but rebellious Grace, the youngest, who goes through the throes of adjusting to married life; the feisty and headstrong Lourdes, the middle daughter, who succumbs to an extra-marital affair; and the subservient and discriminated on eldest, Jess, a lesbian who brings home her girlfriend to take care of the father after he succumbs to a heart attack.

The story unfolds in a series of events (a wedding, a santa­cruzan, a parade, the annihilation of the summer cogon by fire, a death) that marks the beginning (early summer—”Kàleldo”), the middle (midsummer—”Maleldo”) and the end (late summer—”Ka-uran”) of summer. This confirms the film’s statement that life, like the various turn of events that govern the char­acters’ lives, is as changeable and volatile as the seasons.

In this setup are the elements of nature—sun, moon, wind, earth, fire and water—identified with each character, illustrat­ing the diversity of the characters’ climate of emotions and motivations.

It is in conclusion then that nature and life are so similar as forces which every human being has to reckon and deal with.

And because of the unpredictabilty of both, it follows that the film ends with a wild card, a universal idiom which the Filipino audi­ence will surely recognise.