It’s 2015, and I’m watching “Dahling Nick” for the first time. I’m transfixed and pleasantly surprised as I sit in my cinema seat (I’m generally not fond of biopics about creatives that combine their biography with scenes from their works, but this one executed that right) and after the movie ends, my friend and I go to the comfort room and overhear gossip about the movie and the late old writer himself from a few old ladies that ignore us. We also trade gossip. In hushed whispers, we point out the old artists and writers we saw in the audience.
Watching “Dahling Nick” was one of my favorite movie viewing experiences, no cap. Half-documentary, half-adaptation, director Sari Dalena takes a delicate look into the life and works of Nick Joaquin, her father’s old drinking buddy. There’s so many elements to this that shouldn’t have worked, but does—Raymond Bagatsing as old Nick and his author inserts shouldn’t work as well as it does, dammit, and I shouldn’t be as moved as I am by the sight of Gemino Abad, Krip Yuson and Butch Dalisay talking about Joaquin while knocking back a bottle of beer—and watching it feels like slowly finding yourself being embedded right within the local literary and arts scene of old.
I can’t replicate my experience, but here’s the next best thing: Cinema One will be streaming the film for free on their YouTube channel.
Para sa literatura. Para sa paglaya.
2015 #C1Originals documentary-drama film ni Sari Dalena, starring Raymond Bagatsing, Dahling Nick! Streaming on #CinemaOne‘s YouTube channel starting August 21, 12nn until August 26, 12mn!
Subscribe now: https://t.co/FiA32LXi3u! https://t.co/iY9jZ8AC9X
— Cinema One Originals (@c1origs) August 20, 2020
Be quick, though, since it’ll only be up for a limited time, from Aug. 21 at noon until Aug. 26 midnight.
Photo screengrab from the “Dahling Nick” trailer
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