What the fuck. Is this now my favorite Nora Aunor performance, even for that sublime opening number alone? It's fascinating how Nora knows how to accommodate, and then elevate, her director's vision so effortlessly. How she becomes a Brocka or Bernal (or even Lamangan or Perez) woman, and then this, with Mario O'Hara. How she fashioned herself into a fearless and endlessly scorned (Filipina) woman, animalistic in her instinct and intentions, to shed light on beauty and life that persists…

Here, all of life is a series of absurd repetitions. There is an exhibit of photographs Asako visits when she is younger, and then visits again years after. Is it the same exhibit, the same photographs? Is it the same Asako? To confront this repetition means to test its value over time. What does it mean to say it is the first time? Its immediacy, its newness, its raw impact? Or the mere fact and act of discovery, to seek…