Sabel Is Still Young

🧠 Synopsis

Sabel Is Still Young (2022) is a Filipino erotic drama ~90 minutes in length and rated 18+, released by director GB Sampedro and screenplay writer Troy Espiritu. The film chronicles the evocative and tragic story of Sabel (Katya Santos) a woman notorious for her unrivaled beauty and sensuality in her rural town, alongside a shrouded and tragic life history. Sabel, a mother, is determined to reclaim her youth and freedom, both emotionally and sexually, despite societal expectations.

Sabel attempts to emotionally rediscover herself, only to grappless integrate herself with a younger man named Mark (Kiko Estrada) whose motives are a blend of control and desire. The film’s emotional core, tension between youthful adoration and the wisdom of experience, Sabel’s journey turns into an exhilarating and at times grueling blend of pleasure, pain, and enlightenment.

🎭 Characters and Performances

Sabel (Katya Santos):

Making her return to the screen, Katya Santos combines her interpretation with a sensual yet vulnerable performance, sashaying through Sabel, a character battling between her societal perception and a plague of stagnation. She is every woman, in search of herself. Santos imbues Sabel with raw emotionality. She captures the audience’s attention through aching, subtle pain.

Mark (Kiko Estrada):

Estrada portrays the younger Mark who plays both the role of Sabel’s lover, as well as her fading innocence’s reflection. He captures the essence of impassioned and turbulent youth, demonstrating how quickly that love can become possessive. Estrada’s performance reveals a clear-eyed execution of a man who is yearning for more than he can take.

Ester (Millen Gal):

As Sabel’s daughter, Ester embodies the intergenerational conflict and scandal that Sabel perpetually grapples with. Millen Gal balances youthful rebellion and a quiet yearning for maternal care, making her performance compelling and layered. The mother-daughter relationship is among the film’s most deeply felt and impactful.

Amado (Gardo Versoza):

As a man from Sabel’s history, Versoza provides a more grounded and symbolic foil to the younger Mark Estrada. His character conveys a sense of nostalgia for paths never taken and deeply felt remorse from endless possibilities.

📚 Themes and Symbolism

Sexuality and Reclamation

The film centers on a woman’s exploration of her sexuality and the ongoing struggle to take back ownership of her body. Sabel’s sensuality is depicted as not only erotic in nature, but liberatory – a defiance against a society that seeks to silence and shame older women for expressing their desire.

Youth vs. Experience

Sabel and Mark’s differences go deeper than their looks. Mark’s youthful impulsiveness sharply contrasts Sabel’s more seasoned approach. Together these two contrasts shape the emotionally resolve yet fail bond.

Shame and Social Judgment

Sabel’s world automatically labels women with a history as morally bankrupt. She becomes an example showing how women consider themselves to be honored but later punished for such self-objectification, reflecting society’s cruelty. The society’s blame as a source of shame creates a conflict without a resolution.

Motherhood and Identity

Sabel as a mother juggles the expectations of desiring to be in love and loved, mirroring the conflict of having to fulfill private personal and societal responsibilities. The conflict between Sabel and daughter Ester illustrates how motherly affection may paradoxically conflict with self-emancipation.

🎥 Cinematic Style and Atmosphere

Young Still Sabel Stops features GB Sampedro’s signature style such as closed spaces with muted colors and sensual close-ups. The slow poignant pacing helps with self-reflection. While the love scenes contain an element of erotica, they express powerful emotions behind the act capturing the emptiness and yearning they entail.

Sound design is crucial, and it is through ambient sounds and issues, and silences that the emotional gravity of the crucial scenes is lifted further. Also, the rural area gives a sense of isolation, depicting Sabel as a woman imprisoned by her location and the society’s judgment.

📣 Reception and Strengths vs. Weaknesses

For Sabel, the indie and Vivamax circuit were abuzz with the bold storytelling of the film as well as the performance of Santos. Although it was not well received by all, the film is commendable for its treatment of mature themes as it does not resort to attention grabbing techniques.

Strengths:

Visually stunning and atmospheric direction

Batya Santos’ passionate performance

Mature, nuanced themes not frequently tackled by local mainstream cinema

Weaknesses:

Melodramatic or underwritten certain plot developments

Supporting characters lacking depth

For those who expect a fast paced erotic drama, the slow pacing may prove a turn off

🎯 Key Takeaways for the Audience

Sabel Is Still Young isn’t merely about eroticism, but rather the erasure of rediscovery and resilience, as well as the endurance of a woman to reason her existence within the narrow confines that the society have constructed for her. It further exemplifies that youth is not classified by an age, but rather by a spirit, and that desire does not vanish, but rather transforms.

🚩 Best suited for:

People who enjoy watching character-focused erotic dramas.

Viewers looking for mature feminist narratives.

Followers of Katya Santos’s remarkable comeback on screen.

🎬 Final Thought

Sabel Is Still Young (2022) is a striking film, putting a formerly muted woman in the center of a story meant for her to narrate while boldly exploring her emotions. It captivates through passionate performances and a fearless narrative as it explores the wilderness of female desire and loneliness, and the arduous battle to reclaim dignity in a world eager to cast it aside.