Now streaming on Netflix, Zig Dulay’s Best Picture winner at the 2024 Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF), titled Green Bones, poses a difficult question: Who deserves to be saved?
The question is simple, but it’s followed by an answer that changes shape the more the film unravels. Its first act follows Xavier Gonzaga (Ruru Madrid), a fresh-faced officer newly assigned to the secluded San Fabian Prison and Penal Farm. To Gonzaga, the world exists in black and white, divided into those worthy of redemption and those beyond saving. Madrid imbues this so much in his character that he embodies this binary mindset and convinces us, at least for the film’s first hour, that it’s the only way to see things.
So when Gonzaga meets Dom Zamora (Dennis Trillo), a longtime inmate accused of murdering his sister and niece, we, like Gonzaga, are quick to judge. In Gonzaga’s eyes, Zamora is a ruthless, volatile killer, impossible to save, even though he’s set to leave the facility soon on good behavior. The officer spends his first days at the facility watching Zamora closely, driven by suspicion and determined to find any reason to keep him behind bars.
Trillo, for his part, delivers a masterful performance that keeps audiences uncertain of Zamora’s true nature. His early interactions with Gonzaga are marked by eerie moments of silence, uncomfortable tension, and an undeniable sense that a hidden truth lies beneath the surface. Like Gonzaga, we find ourselves unable to trust him. The cat-and-mouse dynamic between the two drives the film’s intensity, making it no surprise that both actors were honored at the 2024 MMFF. Trillo took home the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, while Madrid earned the Best Actor in a Supporting Role Award.
Perhaps a testament to the film’s screenplay — written by Angeli Atienza and the indomitable National Artist for Film and Broadcast Arts Ricky Lee — the second act swiftly shifts gears, upending everything we thought we knew about Zamora. Trillo skillfully reveals a new, more human side to the character, portraying Zamora not just as a hardened prisoner but as a man capable of forgiveness. By the end of the second act, the answer to who deserves to be saved no longer has a simple answer, precisely because of Trillo’s ability to find the humanity in an alleged murderer.
Green Bones, at its core, is a meditation on morality: how we define it, and more importantly, how we hold on to it when we have every reason to let go. Zamora, despite being trapped within a brutal justice system and subjected to years of imprisonment, never fully relinquishes his humanity. Trillo finds the balance in portraying a man who is neither seeking vengeance nor protesting his innocence, but rather trying to live by a quiet, personal code. The film gradually peels back the layers to reveal someone shaped by violence, but not entirely consumed by it.
Green Bones leaves us with no easy answers. The movie forces us to confront uncomfortable truths: the cracks in our country’s justice system, the ease with which we draw our moral lines, and the biases we carry about who is worthy of redemption. Green Bones does not grant us a simple, happy ending; instead, it asks us to reckon with the complexity of our own judgements and the systems that shape them.
