Even the tiny roles--German Moreno as a sinister jail warden, Edwin O'Hara (who usually plays rapists) as the prison chaplain; Ricky Davao as Nor Aunor's boyfriend, the various character actors and non-actors who play guards, vendors, police officers, street people--shine.

I haven't even begun talking about the filmmaking--the precise editing, the wonderful musical cuing (never too much music, never too melodramatic), the corridor compositions, the grimly realistic lighting, the endless close-ups that save money because only very small areas are lit, yet at the same time give you a sense of intense claustrophobia--you feel from all the tight shots how this is one nightmare of an overcrowded prison.

With all this going on, you'd think Nora Aunor's performance would be lost; on the contrary, they only enhance it. In the beginning, she's only one of many colorful characters; by the film's end, she's the undoubted heroine, and the miracle is, you don't quite know how she got there. Her acting here is so quiet--the showiest moments are when the camera focuses on her eyes, and you can see the fire in them. Aunor just may be the dumbest, most unthinking actress alive--and with the way she conducts her life to date, who's to say she isn't? Yet maybe she has to be, to be so incredibly intuitive--to be able to create this kind of magic, almost as if out of nowhere. She doesn't need words, she doesn't need thoughts, she doesn't need anything--she just needs silence, and those impossibly intense eyes...

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It's not just sadness. I remember a scene where Maya Valdez tells Aunor that one of the jail officers nicknamed Cowboy liked her and would like to have sex with her. Aunor, her eyes downcast throughout Valdez's speech says no, she can't.

Valdez couldn't believe her ears. She asked "You know who you're turning down? You know what he can do to you if you refuse him? I'll give you one more chance. By the count of three. One. Two."

"Three," Aunor tells her, and for the first time in the scene, levels her eyes with Valdez's own. If looks could kill, Valdez should have burned down to the ground in that instant.