I got the terrible news right after my elementary school graduation, where the initial high of finally finishing the first six years of my education was promptly brought down to earth by my father’s gruff announcement that I flunked the exams. Thanks a lot, Dad.

Ever since then, I’ve held the students of both the Manila Science High School and the Philippine Science High School as deities in the firmament of teenage academia.

Their words were dogma and were to be treated as such. With such a (one-sided) relationship between the two of us, it was inevitable that I go into a screening of Auraeus Solito’s Pisay with stereotypes about his characters firmly in place.

Pisay follows the lives of Philippine Science High School students from
1983 to 1986, working their way from freshman to senior year while the country slowly heads towards the climactic events of EDSA I.

Four stories in particular get a special focus. We get to see the budding love between "alternate" Rom and rich girl Wena; the travails of "average" student Mat; the unlikely friendship between student activist Liway and CAT officer Andy; Euri, the resident playwright who has to make a choice in their fourth and final year, and a heartbreaking event that brings them all together.

At first blush, it’s easy to dismiss Pisay as yet another coming-of-age teen movie along the lines of *Dead Poets Society or anything that starred Molly Ringwald in the 1980s. Anyone making that assumption may have a valid point, as all the necessary characters are there: The poor little rich girl the handsome poor boy, the outcast and the jock, or in this case, the CAT officer.

The expected hook-ups happen along the way as well: Rich girl falls in love with poor boy, CAT officer with outcast. One could even say that it’s like The Breakfast Club, except spread out across a whole school year. But is that such a bad thing?

The Breakfast Club made stars out of its actors, and Pisay does the same not only for its young actors but for the students of the Philippine Science High School as well. After watching the movie, these kids are no longer academic gods but young kids just trying to work their way through the maze of puberty and the Marcos-era. Pisay makes the students of the country’s "elitist" school as recognizable and as relatable as any student in any school in the country today.

A world rarely seen

This accessibility is perhaps best credited to the fact that the stories
told in the movie were mostly nspired by the experiences of Philippine Science High School alumni, specifically from Batch ‘86. In fact, one of the characters can easily be identified as representing the daughter of a famous political activist.

The film also makes these stories seem like they’ve never been told before, and it’s amazing how the team behind Pisay achieves all of this simply by changing the setting. By going inside one of the country’s most "exclusive" schools, the viewers not only get a coming-of-age story, but a peek into a world that is rarely seen.

After all, who would have thought that a school of "nerds" would have a hierarchy as rigid and as political as any high school in the country? Not only do the students of the Philippine Science High School have to contend with tougher academic demands, they have to juggle seniors and more scientifically-inclined classmates pulling rank on them, especially when the school administration enforces a policy that separates better-performing students from the rest of the school.

It’s also refreshing that the film doesn’t idealize life at the Philippine
Science High School. Mat’s storyline, in particular, is especially uplifting, even if he does get kicked out of school in the end. There is a touching scene where his teacher builds him up when it becomes clear that he won’t be staying in the school any longer, and it does so without resorting to melodrama.

The film even takes a dig at the high school’s emphasis on Science and

Mathematics related subjects, best seen in Euri’s story. He is forced to make a choice between his promise to the school to take up a science-related course and his love for the arts, and his final decision is prompted by the final tragedy that binds them all.

Realistic feel

That the film happens during the

politically-turbulent years of the mid-80s adds another layer to the movie. Aside from the allusions to Saucony’s and Topsiders, it is the news footage used sparingly throughout the film that keeps the film a realistic 80s feel.

The fact that the students rarely talk about the political turmoil the country was undergoing at the time adds to the illusion as well. After all, you’re a 13 -year-old trying to survive in one of the toughest schools in the country, and it’s understandable that your priorities may not be set straight just yet.

When tragedy does happen, like Ninoy’s assassination, the way that the students deal with it also seems like what the students at the Philippine Science High School would do. They discuss the physics that went behind the assassination, and in some odd way it just makes sense that they would deal with it this way.

I don’t know if it was impeccable marketing on the part of the distributors to have its regular release during the EDSA I celebrations, but the fact that the film’s climax is on EDSA I and I watched it on the EDSA anniversary gave the film an added layer of emotion that perhaps wouldn’t be as powerful had it been screened on any other date.

For those who never made it past the exams, and have always wondered what it would have been if they did (i.e. me), Pisay is the perfect introduction into that world. In the space of little more than two hours, this little gem of a movie made me feel like I actually went to Pisay myself.