Segurista (1996)

Tikoy Aguiluz’s “Segurista” is about a woman who works as an insurance seller by day and a G.R.O by night. This double life ensures Karen (Michelle Aldana) securing deals for the day as she supposedly enjoys her night shifts. The interesting paradox of the insurance seller working for her own insurance, surfaces later when we discover the reason behind Karen’s hard work – she needed a sideline for the benefit of her family left in their lahar-flooded town in Pampanga.

The film opens with an interesting first act masterfully helmed by its director Tikoy Aguiluz. Here we are introduced to the world of Karen - we see her live her “normal life”, as she tries to balance both her jobs and perfect both of their functions. The film’s opening music, which echoes in various parts of the movie up to its ending, works perfectly as an invitation to the audience, almost tempting us to show how an effective saleswoman Karen is. It’s also in this act where we are introduced to Sonny (Gary Estrada), the man who would fall in love with Karen, albeit unaware of her secret.

Into the film’s second act, we are then introduced to its central conflict - we discover Karen’s weekends when she goes home to Pampanga and devote solely her time for her family. Here we are introduced to her loyal husband Eddie (Julio Diaz); and their innocent daughter, always delighted with her mother’s arrival, as she gets to receive gifts almost every weekend. We suddenly forget Karen’s flaws as we see her living an almost perfect life as a loving wife and mother; she who goes to church often, asking for forgiveness for her wrongdoings. We are led to believe that her top priority in this time of calamity is to ensure the security of her family.

We see the downfall of Karen’s story and most horribly, perhaps even that of the film in its final act. This is perhaps attributed to the many themes being dealt with that aren’t actually resolved; we are shown a variety of storytelling mechanisms with certain twists in the film’s plot that we are sometimes drawn into confusion. What seemed to be a unique and fresh style of storytelling in the beginning was not carried over in the film’s conclusion, as we are presented with a familiar happening that feels like we’ve already seen dozens of times before.

There is a sense of disappointment because the film had so much potential but I feel that it got lost somewhere in the middle; even the last scene didn’t strike me as much as I thought it was supposed to. It started off really almost perfect - the cinematography was superb with the interesting play of angles and colors; the performances of almost unknown actors were convincing; and the realism of the story felt pure. The film would have been so much better had the filmmakers decided to remove some of the music as almost every scene was scored. It would have perhaps been better if the film had no score at all, I guess that way there is more emphasis in the film’s haunting song.

It is also noteworthy to recognize Michelle Aldana’s captivating and compelling performance as Karen in the movie, as she was the film’s revelation – I have no doubt in my head that her performance in this film is awards-worthy. Other commendable performances in the film include that of Albert Martinez’s as a masochist dance instructor, Pen Medina’s as a taxi driver and Julio Diaz’s as Karen’s naive husband.

”Segurista” remains an important piece in Philippine Cinema because of its almost being nominated for the Oscar Best Foreign Film in 1996; placing top twelve overall in the list, it’s the highest rank by far from a Filipino film in this category. Indeed this is something to be proud of as the film’s potential, although not fully realized, is enough to consider it a gem.