Intimacy, Secrets and the Quiet Uproar
When Himas emerged in whispers of the festival, it looked straightforward: a wife, a husband, a man who has witnessed tragedy, and a young man who joins the scene. What the audiences found was a domestic drama developing in confined spaces with subtle yet deep emotional undercurrents, and identity, desire, and betrayal issues that lingered long after the credits rolled. Christian Paolo Lat is a filmmaker whose past work avoided showmanship in the interest of depicting inner landscapes. In Himas he has not made the task easier. He challenges and invites the audience to a world that is not unfamiliar, yet rotates ever so slowly.
The Story: Love in the Aftermath
The movie begins with Dana (Sahara Bernales) married to Ed (Felix Roco) a fireman who lost his sight in the course of an incident years ago. Ed is soft, gentle, and loving yet the trauma has changed him. He no longer fulfills Dana’s emotional and physical needs in the manner which she has anticipated. Their house is tender and quiet, yet the stillness is like a fog where silhouettes are concealed.
Later, we see Meann (Zsara Tiblani) a man that came across as lonely and desperate, yet has a certain appeal, and has a understanding of Dana’s long-ignored wishes. Soon, he effortlessly, physically and emotionally, captures her heart: late-night text and phone exchanges, romantic surrenders of fantasies, a mutual saving grace. Dana’s commitment towards Ed gets weakened and torn to pieces. Even though Ed remains blind, he has a unique ability to understand that something has changed and shifted, he just doesn’t know whether he wants to embrace it or not.
A metamorphosis occurs during the third act of the film. Surprising, Ed starts sensing Meann’s aura. As he hears the man’s presence though the man isn’t there, he starts to hear his laugh. The climax of the situation appears to be Ed’s absence of self-control. With great speed, Dana surrenders and the next thing we see is Ed all alone.
With the last frame of the film, we see Ed all by himself, rigidly sitting, all frozen. The next thing we see, we see his wife’s chair empty, and the suitcase right by the exit. As the dawn peeks, the camera captures Ed, long-held staring at the table which is all set up. He sits there blindly, as if lost in thoughts, the expression on his face is void, and the light of the outside world that barely shines (other than the glow of dawn) passes through the blinds.
Fan Theories: What Lies Behind the Gaze
Despite the relatively low-key approach taken by Himas, this has not prevented speculation on fan forums:
- The Vision Theory
A number of viewers suggest that the blindness experienced by Ed is not merely blindness, but symbolic of deeper emotional voids. There are some who argue that Meann never actually existed, being the construction of Dana’s self who ‘glances’ at Ed’s limitations and breathes the life he cannot create. Indicators: the very first few frames of the movie when Dana’s reflection appears to talk to her; the moment when Ed’s cane touches the ground but is significantly, and, very tellingly, silent.
- The Betrayal Loop Theory
One of the more radical suggestions is that the film loops in time. The suitcase by the door is not Dana leaving, but Ed leaving. There is a very telling moment in the film where Ed’s footsteps are in a corridor, but are walking in reverse. Some of the viewers mention a prior segment where a puddle beneath the door appears to double. With a little imagination, we could say that Dana’s infidelity is the event that has taken place, and Ed is the one re-experiencing the trauma.
- The Redemption Theory
More optimistically inclined viewers may see the film as one about reconciliation. Dana does not abandon her husband Ed: she departs on a quest for self-definition. Ed’s gaze at the end is not grief but hope: the chair is empty, yet he still lays the table. Fans point to a brief glimpse of the dinnerware as a metaphor for their unfulfilled, unacknowledged, and undone self-matching needs.
Christian Paolo Lat was deliberately vague in the interviews, saying only: “The truth of the film is in what you choose not to see.
Alternate Endings That Might Have Been
Based on production notes and a few comments by the cast, Himas had at least two alternate endings. In one, Dana comes back with Meann to surprise Ed, but it is Meann who drives off alone, leaving husband and wife face to face.
In another, Ed temporarily regains his sight at the climax, and sees the affair. He closes his eyes again. Some viewers interpret this as forgiveness; others see it as denial.
One part of the editing notes describes a shot of Ed putting the cane down and walking out that is also the ending of the film and said to be cut because the director believed it was a balance between ambiguity and moral judgment.
Sahara Bernales explained in an interview with Ciné Série: “To play Dana was to brandish the two blades of desire and guilt simultaneously. I couldn’t figure out whether to feel pity or to cast blame, and that in itself is a problem.”
Felix Roco further said of Ed, “He is blind, yes, but I did not wish to approach him in the manner of a victim. ‘He’ Ed’ ‘is’ ‘more’ ‘than’ ‘we’ ‘see.’ On set, there were moments when I preferred silence to line reading, because that is where Ed occupies.
Young actor Zsara Tiblani said that the hardest role to play was Meann: “He’s the one who, in his head, thinks that he is helping Dana. He is a softness that is aggressive. On set, I wore headsets during rehearsals, not to listen to the world, but so that my character was perpetually in a state of listening, always, ravenous.”
Director Christian Paolo Lat confessed that the film was shot in the span of 21 days, mostly in one apartment, to enhance the claustrophobic feel and immerse the actors in the emotional landscape of the space. He stated, “We never left.”
“We slept. Rested. Worked. It was home—and, at the same time, a confinement dome.”
Did You Know Production Facts
They filmed the set at a renovated flat in the region, refurbished to capture the 1960s-nostalgia. The filming was done in a specific succession to help the cast sense alternative time streams with the decay and weariness accumulation.
The table scene with the dinner takes an uncut 9-minute segment. The entire sequence depicts real Patricia and Bernales.
The mirror designed as the set piece in the climax was an accident. The set was supposed to be different. During practice, Bernales broke the glass uncontrolled. Lat used the scene because of the reckless noise, so she was supposed to stay silent and reveal the hidden emotions.
For Ed, the Foley sound of the cane was constructed of honks and other nelphones as a tribute to his firefighter lineage.
The lines on the suitcase tag protruding as “HIMAS” was confirmed by the costume designer to be planned, “You carry a larger weight to life then what is realized.”
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