REFLECTION PAPER: RAINBOW SUNSET

IT ALL STARTED WITH “FRIENDS” THAT BECAME A LOVE TRIANGLE

MEMBERS:

CRISTOBAL, John Paul D.

DE JESUS, Mikaela C.

EVASCO, Rence R.

LOPEZ, Kimberly O.

MALLARI, Dyronne Patrick M.

PEREZ, Jerimiah M.

SAGADAL, Jane C.

GAS 12-1
 No matter who you are, on what challenges you've been through, a family is always
beside to support and accept you. According to Pineda (2018), this film is all about a father who
came out as a part of the LGBT community in his old years. It is an official entry of the Metro
Manila Film Festival in 2018, directed by Mr. Joel Lamangan and written by Mr. Eric Ramos. As
stated by Tomada (2018) in an article of PhilStar, the film received the highest grade possible
given by the Cinema Evaluation Board even though it is pulled out on some cinemas. According
to Pineda (2018), on the first part of the story, Eddie Garcia (Ramon Estrella) received an award
as the Most Outstanding Alumnus and he told a story about his experiences with Alfredo
Veneracion while they were studying at Mataas na Paaralan ng San Martin. After he got the
award, he received a message that Fredo has a cancer and he had few months to live. Ramon
decided to live with Fredo until his last breath. Their children did not agree to their father’s
decision because they might ruin their names in the politics, and they were concerned of their
mom. Later to that situation, the siblings went through a conflict about their own families,
Emman’s family discovered that he had a sex scandal, Marife had an affair with a younger man,
and Georgina had a fight with Marife. Following this scenario, a lot of people were talking about
the relationship of Fredo and Ramon, but they didn’t care about them. One day, he attended the
party of his daughter, Georgina, and he and Fredo were wearing matching barong. Georgina
suggested that they should separate tables because of the people were talking about their gay
father. Her father left the party because of that incident. The day after the party, Fredo called
Sylvia to tell that Ramon passed away. After Ramon died, Sylvia and her children promised
Fredo to take care of him. Fredo also signed his last will and testament and gave it to Ben.

It is not only about their gender, but it is also about the relationship of the family. Not all
families are perfect, we all have imperfections when it comes to our families. Some are rich but
not happy, some are broken family, and some families who have everyday conflict with each
other. In their case, they have a successful family, they have a complete family, but there are a
lot of hindrances of keeping their family to get along together.

The title itself already gave the clue on what is the theme of the story. We can say that it
is an LGBT-related film because of the rainbow in the title. According to Pemberton (2019),
rainbow has been widely known as the symbol of the LGBTQ Community. It was also expected
that it has something to do with love and lastly, stereotyping is already given that it might be
noticed in the movie since it is a queer related film.

After viewing the film, there are lots of lessons that the movie shows. The first one is that
we are not alone. We have our family and friends that will always be beside us to love us,
support us, and motivate us in times of distress.

The second one is that the most important thing is to understand and respect each
member of the family. It is the way or a bridge to make their family stronger, like in this film, the
siblings surpass and resolved their problems because they understand, and they are being humble
to each other. They didn't succeed that problems if they are not being humble to each other. Also
having a family that respect the wants, decision and help each other. It must be the characteristics
of a strong family, that no one can change and break even a plenty of problems.

The next one is this story teaches us that we should not judge other people because of
their sexuality. We should accept them of who they really are. It is very hard to come out as a
part of the LGBT community because they are afraid of the judgments of the people. Learn to
respect them, don’t make issues just because we don’t usually see older people who were part of
the LGBT community and comes out on their older years.

The film does not also mean that it is not the gender to know that you love someone even
if you know that you’re going to hurt someone that you love, like Sylvia (Gloria Romero) in the
film, her position in the story was so difficult to love her husband Ramon and his childhood
friend Fredo, though she knows that they want each other. She chooses to accept it even when
many people have pity on her situation. In the last part of the story Ramon died not because of
family problems but instead of being angry. Sylvia chose to accept and take care of Fredo as her
childhood friend because sex or friendship will not matter with how you accept something or a
person.

Lastly, we realized that no matter how hard the situation is, you need to fight for what
you think is right. Do not mind other people's opinion about yourself, just do whatever you want
to do and what makes your life to become happy unless you are not degrading someone. We also
realized that the family in this film discriminates people who are involved in third sex and those
person you expected that they will be the one who are going to help you, were the same person
who will going to let you down.

We should not judge people just because they are not part of the binary. We should love
and accept them as equal as the binary people. We should support our family on whatever they
wanted to be. There are a lot of people who are afraid to come out as a part of the LGBT
community because they are very afraid to be judged by their own family. This movie also
teaches us to learn to love, support, and accept each other. Do not hesitate to tell “I love you” to
someone you love before it is too late that they won’t hear it anymore. Love wins no matter what
and whatever happens, our family will always be by our side.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Pemberton, B. (2019, June). CHASING RAINBOWS What does LGBT stand for, what does the
rainbow design of the Gay Pride flag mean and when was the LGBT+ pride flag
introduced? Retrieved (August 1, 2019) from:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3959656/pride-flag-gay-rainbow-design-lgbt/

Pineda, R. (2018, December). Rainbow’s Sunset: An MMFF LGBT Film Entry, Sun Star
Pampanga, pp. 11.

Tomada, N. (2018, December). Rainbow’s Sunset dominates 2018 Metro Manila Film Festival.
Retrieved (August 1, 2019) from:
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/12/29/1880679/rainbows-sunset-dominates-
2018-metro-manila-film-festival