Manila (CNN Philippines Life) — Mario Cornejo’s “Apocalypse Child” couldn’t have opened more aptly.

Tales are told over soothing images of waves and toy figures arranged carefully on seaside rocks. Centuries ago, natives survived a catastrophic typhoon. During the revolution against Spain, troops trapped inside the town’s cathedral received news from the outside from their Filipino girlfriends. Sometime in the 70s, the surfing scenes of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” was shot in the very same town. The crew left behind a surfboard, which was then picked up by locals. With a surfboard in hand, they learned how to surf, eventually turning them into surfing champs.

They are all lovely tales, whose truths hardly matter. The value of the stories lies in their ability to grant Baler — the rather unspectacular beach town whose indistinct look might have been the reason why Coppola chose it as a location for a movie that is supposedly set elsewhere in Asia — a very distinct flavor, an almost mythical quality that would favor its image as a place for both cultural immersion, as well as the right spot to practice a sport, whose main allure is connected to its aim of achieving perfect grace amidst nature’s unpredictable chaos.

From there, the film shifts its attention to a man and a woman who seem to be in love. They flirt in the beach. They ride home together on the man’s motor bike. They make love with the playfulness that is quite enviable. The woman is Fiona (Annicka Dolonius), a girl who is only in town to keep her dying grandmother company while learning how to surf on the side.

The man is Ford (Sid Lucero), her surfing instructor and sometimes lover. Aside from the reasons why she’s in town, not a lot is known about Fiona except that she is quite young at 19, and that she is very much into Ford. Ford’s life however is a treasure trove of stories. He owes his name to a story perpetuated by his mother Chona (Ana Abad Santos) that he was actually sired by Coppola while he was shooting in town and she was 14, innocent, and vulnerable to the ways of romance. He is also a champion surfer who lost three years ago, presumably because he wanted to surf without a surfboard, or he was lured by a mermaid. The stories around him are all bigger than him, because he is essentially a boy unwilling to grow up. He is as trapped in the past as the town that is also full of stories that he lives in.

“Apocalypse Child” is a film about tales, tall and true. It is also about relationships, both straightforward and complicated.

The film’s characters are connected to each other by definable links. Chona is the imperfect mother to Ford, Ford is lover to Fiona, and so on. Characters are introduced. Rich (RK Bagatsing), the young congressman who used to be Ford’s childhood friend, had just arrived in town to introduce to everybody his engagement to Serena (Gwen Zamora). Rich’s arrival inevitably opens up both wounds and passions that have been buried in the past. Serena’s appearance becomes an avenue to get even.

The tenuous emotions that the characters have for each other dominate the atmosphere of the film. Each of the many scenes depicting the characters getting wasted with weed and alcohol is very telling of the great need to repress louder feelings, to keep things within a certain level of fake calm lest things go awry. The characters’ other drug is the stories they tell, of the first time they smoked together, of easier times where they are actually happy and are not just feigning it. When a character finally explodes, the disruption to all the restraint resonates and lingers.

The film never paints its characters as people who are to be judged by social norms and morality. They talk, act, and ache like the rest of us, capable of deceit, revenge, and whim, not because they are following some grand plan, but only because it is convenient and human beings are creatures of convenience.

“Apocalypse Child” is a master class in purposeful restraint in filmmaking.

The film, right from the start, is a balancing act where each word, each gesture, each beautifully composed shot and each relevant cut are meticulously placed and measured to give away just enough to carve a story about the intricate web of stories that have engulfed the characters.

However, to exalt the film simply on the deftness of its crafting and storytelling would be a disservice to its innate understanding as to how humans work, which is really where the film stands out. It could have been a film about serial liars, of despicable characters whose despicable acts against each other could have been the film’s engrossing but shallow conceit. Yet the film is more profound than that. The film never paints its characters as people who are to be judged by social norms and morality. They talk, act, and ache like the rest of us, capable of deceit, revenge, and whim, not because they are following some grand plan, but only because it is convenient and human beings are creatures of convenience. Fabricating stories is the cheapest way to bury the past. Stories will eventually evolve into legends, and legends, into truth. Yet the film details the pained and stunted lives of its characters. There are repercussions to living a seemingly charmed life full of legends and half-truths.

Simply put, “Apocalypse Child” is a wonder. It unfolds gracefully, with nary a false note in its elegant progression of pitch-perfect moods and nuances.

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"Apocalypse Child" is now screening in selected theaters. For the list of cinemas and schedules, click here.