This film is special, and special in a way not many non-Filipinos will really grasp, and that’s okay. The film brings us along a journey of love, hiding, and communism, if you would believe, that spans decades. Through these decades, we are given an insight on the politics and events that shape the Philippines from the late 60s to the dawn of the new millennia.

Jun (Lucero) is a budding idealist who strives for change in the time the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines was about to really go South. We see him struggle to fight for his political beliefs while going through the struggles of being gay in late 60s Philippines. We see him start an affair, though I’d prefer to call it a relationship, that lasts decades. In a way, Errol (Domingo) is his soulmate, and because of society being the way it was back then, the two go down a spiraling path that is wrought with a lot of pain and hiding; them hiding their love for each other. Errol gets himself married with kids to a girl who actually loves him more than he ever does her. Jun, on the other hand, goes through a plethora of relationships that don’t really ever go well, because deep down he knows that his heart only ever really belonged to Errol.

The main take, for me, is this. We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us; those who had to hide or get persecuted for just loving. No words can really describe how lucky we are, the younger generation, that we live in such a different era of acceptance compared to then. Though the fight for our rights are still going on in different levels around the world, we can never deny the difference a few decades has brought; what the hardships of generations past has brought for us.

In the end of everything, through that spiraling path they went through, life found them a way. In the end, love still won. Though time has robbed them of many years together, Jun and Errol are allowed to be together for the rest of their days.