Gaya Sa Pelikula
Synopsis:
GAYA SA PELIKULA tells us about Karl, a 19-year-old recluse architecture student in the middle of an identity crisis. He is forced by his parents to move into his uncle’s condo unit to learn to live alone, a family tradition, prior to the start of the second semester of college.
Pressured to have enough money to earn his keep, Karl takes on odd jobs online. But when one of his major clients suddenly goes MIA, he is left short on funds and without a means to pay for his utilities. An opportunity presents itself when his neighbor, the mysterious Vlad, whom he despises for being inconsiderate, gets himself in a sticky situation , hiding from his own family, and proposes that they become housemates for the rest of the semestral break in exchange for rent
Soundtrack:
Plot:
The first episode starts with Karl in his new apartment. He wrote an article for money and when it came to payment the client disappeared. Even though it is his uncles condo his parents have told him to pay his rent. Broke and jobless he comes across his neighbour Vlad.
Vlad is gay and aloof from his family. He comes from a well to do family, he's rich.
From the episodes it seems he is close to his sister but not on good terms with his mother who keeps on calling him home.
His sister comes to take him back home but he tells a lie. Vlad says he's dating Karl and that he doesn't want to leave him here alone.
Circumstances lead to Vlad staying together with Karl. Karl needs money for rent which Vlad is ready to pay. Along with that Karl wants to work in the film industry as a producer and Vlad is a film student and agrees to help him.
Next episode resumes with chaos where Vlad and Karl find out they're quite different from each other. Vlad keeps on leaving his plates and clothes everywhere which keeps on annoying Karl. When Vlads sister visits she tells Karl to make him come home but Karl says its not upto him or her to make this decision for Vlad. Vlad overheard this and we see he felt relaxed like someone understood him.
Next episode is a Christmas Episode. Karl is putting up Christmas decorations when Vlad comes home. He says Christmas is a pagan turned capitalistic holiday and that Jesus is too forgiving to be a Capricorn.
Vlad gets a call from his best friend sue who advices him to not spend his birthday alone drinking and dancing to some songs, instead celebrate it with Karl.
Sue asks him if he likes Karl, Vlad says that he refuses to be a plot device that triggers somebody else's identity crisis (karl is straight) again.
Vlad goes back to the apartment and sees Anna and Karl watching a movie and crying. He asks Karl to do the dishes and Anna leaves.
Vlad asks Karl what they're going to do for Christmas and he tells him that hes going home to his parents.
Karl leaves and Vlad is alone, he keeps on texting Karl and breaking stuff to get his attention.
Scene Explanation:
In a scene we see that Anna had told Karl about a game called theme song in which when you close your eyes and listen to a song the person who comes to your mind is the person you'd like to be with.
When Vlad is alone and dancing he sees Karl a hint at him wanting to be with Karl.
Karl comes home the next day and he removes the Christmas decorations and puts up Birthday decorations for Vlad while vlad was sleeping because Vlad doesn't like that he shares his birthday on Christmas.
He makes pancakes for his birthday (while pretending to be boyfriends in front of Judith Vlad calls Karl his pancake uwu).
When Sue had called Vlad the night before and asked him to open his gifts he had opened Karl's gift they exchange the gifts next morning and Karl calls him Jockstrap because that's what Sue had sent for Vlad.
Karl's gift to Vlad was slippers because in episode 3 he was mad at Vlad for wearing shoes in the house.
Episode 5 shows that the electricity goes off and all three of them Vlad, Karl and Anna are sitting and telling ghost stories.
Soon they go down on the grounds and drink and talk about themselves. Anna says she got pregnant at prom and she's hiding from her daughter who is with her father right now. Vald says his school's prom got cancelled because someone from the previous batch got pregnant. He said he never got to dance with a partner.
With Anna passed out Karl tells Vlad that since dancing with a guy is that important to him he should dance with him. They start to dance and are about to kiss but the light comes back on.
Scene Explanation:
The ghost story that Anna says is quite important to their characters.
She said that anyone who listens to that story will find the Cadaver on their Cabinet.
Vlad found Karl’s baby picture there which was hidden.Vlad finding his picture means he'll help Karl find himself.
Vlad ghost story is about a Unit owner, letting a stranger into his house. Then the unit owner saw himself,almost lifeless with his heart in his hand.
Karl is the Unit owner, let the the stranger Vlad in. And on the last scene Karl was out of breath, scared-to-death because of what almost happened.
Karl saw himself in the mirror, much like the unit owner on Vlad’s story. He saw himself holding his own heart with his hand.
Now in the 6th episode we see Karl confess to Judit that they lied. Judit takes Vlad home on the way home she says if he breaks his heart again they'll deal with it later and so Vlad goes back to Karl.
They dance and finally kiss. Karl tells Vlad about his dead brother and how he took up architecture because of his father.
Scene Explanation:
The dancing part when Vlad opens the door; most of us dance when nobody is watching but when someone comes in our instant reaction is we stop dancing but Karl didn't stop instead he invited Vlad.
It shows that he isn't afraid to show who he is and he opens up more because he isn't afraid of being judged and rejected.
Karl's dancing in unrestrained zeal, like a ballet dancer, symbolizes he wants to break free from the shadow of his dead brother. It was Karl's reawakening.
The story revolves also on Karl being a "ghost writer" and not getting acknowledgement for his work. We also found out later he was a "ghost child"(a child born after the demise of a previous one) Karl was born after a demise of his older brother.
The parents unconsciously incorporated the remains of the older brother to Karl not acknowledging that Karl need to have an identity of his own.
Which lead us to Karl saying to Vlad: "I want to write films. I want to write movies I can call my own. And create its own ending."
This symbolize Karl wanting his life back, wanting to write his own story and identity. Not dictated by somebody from some far away lands.
End of episode scenes:
Trailer:
Review:
Firstly, this BL has a gay guy playing a gay role as a lead. There are hardly any BLs that actually do this.
The writer of Gaya Sa Pelikula is Juan Miguel Severo who is gay. Source CNN
For a person of the Lgbtq community to write about a story of two people from the same community is something very important.
Secondly, consent. When about to kiss, Vlad asks Karl that hes going to kiss him on his cheek and if it was okay with it. This is something that needs to be normalised. BLs have toxic approach to consent and we see topics like rape thrown in conversations lightly and also shown as a way of expressing love. (You know which ones these are)
I watch alot of BLs and the acting is something that I have always rated low. But not in this drama.
It has a really good cast who have done an excellent job in portraying their characters well.
Vlads character is rough bad boy who is gentle. His raspy voice matches his character while we have Karl shown as someone who is innocent and a bit naive, someone who is sensitive, his voice is sweet and he mostly speaks in Tagalog.
The chemistry between the two is undeniable and with the ost playing in the background it makes it even better.
The production value is probably high because this series has excellent quality, impressive camera work and sound work.
I would highly recommend this BL series to everyone. Its not your average BL.
