By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Mike Sandejas
Starring: Adriana Agcaoili | Jayjay Sunico | Lorenzo Mara | Romalito Mallari | Zoe Sandejas
Original language title: Dinig Sana Kita
Country: philippines
Year: 2009
Running time: 88
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1424051/
Michael says: “While certainly doing something different than what the festival circuit is used to regarding Philippine cinema, i.e. avoiding the slums and focusing on a more middle-class family, IF I KNEW WHAT YOU SAID ends up coming across like an after-school special that has it’s sweet moments, but is fairly pedestrian even while telling a very personal and fascinating story. Niña is a high school student who plays in a rock & roll band, and after getting arrested once too often for starting fights, she is sent to a camp where hearing people and deaf people learn to communicate by working together. It is the hope that she will overcome her aggressive tendencies and learn to empathize at the camp. Also at the camp is Kiko, a deaf dancer who works with deaf children at the local school and attends the camp to help younger kids adjust. He and Niña don’t get off to such a great start, but despite this, the two eventually become friends and Niña starts to develop an understanding of others, despite her inattentive, overbearing and borderline abusive parents. While Niña battles behavioral and eventually physical challenges, Kiko, who was abandoned when he was a child, is trying to connect to his mother. By the end of the film, lessons are learned, and our starwart leads move forward with life.
“The acting by the two leads, Zoe Sandejas, the director’s daughter who is in fact a pop musician, and Romalito Mallari, who is in fact a deaf dancer searching for his birth mother after having been abandoned, is pretty strong, particularly Mallari who is open and appealing onscreen. Unfortunately, this screenplay is just rife with potholes and writer/director Sandejas manages to hit most of them. 2 1/2 cats”