Serbis

While it has its gag-inducing moments, director Brillante Mendoza's film about a three-generational family that lives in and operates a rundown porn theatre is more sweet than twisted.

Part-telenovela, part outlandish screwball comedy, part soft-porno, but completely without a road map, Serbis evokes Pedro Almodóvar, Tennessee Williams, and 1940s and '50s Hollywood.

Serbis has the feel of a documentary, but a documentary can't accomplish what "Serbis" does: Take us to a corner of the world where sex and regret are so intimately entwined.

There's a concentration on the immediate and the detail, and the larger social picture is entirely missing, so one is irresistibly drawn to the conclusion that the rot of Filipino society is the fault of the ordinary Filipino.