Sakristan (2020) Episode 3: Cuerdas

Sakristan had its best episode yet in Episode 3: Cuerdas. It's futile to compare Sakristan with Gameboys. In terms of quality, Gameboys is just way ahead of Sakristan. Let's just appreciate the improvements made on Sakristan. At least the plot/storyline went somewhere in this episode. I admire Sakristan's efforts to confront the Philippine Catholic Church's bigotry and hypocrisy on the issue of gays within its community. Although there were still corny and cringy lines, the screenplay was better in this episode. Acting of both lead actors and the chemistry between them improved. Again, it's pointless to compare Clifford and Henry to Elijah and Kokoy. The latter are just way better than the former. Just a quick note on Henry. Henry is a theatre actor. It's not as though he can't act. He can. The problem is acting direction. The VinCentiments style of acting continuously failed to grasp the difference between stage and screen acting. Because of the perspective and proximity of the audience, acting on stage is bigger and exaggerated to be able to reach the people at the very back of the theatre. This means making vocal, physical, and emotional choices in acting that are oftentimes unnatural and unrealistic. You also get away with small unnecessary movements on stage. The problem with the VinCentiments style of acting in Sakristan, it's as if they're still on stage! This was pretty obvious with the support cast members (especially Loren Marinas) who were overacting in this episode. There were also a lot of unnecessary movements magnified on screen. Since Henry and those in the support cast with stage experience were not given proper acting direction, their style of acting always looked bad on screen. It's a pity because I really like Henry. He needs to transition from being a good stage actor to being a good screen actor. Production design and cinematography were good for this episode. I guess editing is a matter of taste. The abrupt cutting off scenes and the fast-paced jumping from one scene to another may look artistic for some but they can also be seen as ways to hide acting inadequacies. I love the musical scoring and the OST for this episode. I've finally decided that if I'll continue to watch Sakristan, I'll need to stop comparing it to Gameboys. I should just appreciate the improvements made in each episode. So for the next episodes, I'll do just that.

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