The Garden of Earthly Delights (2025)
Genre: Drama
Duration: 124 minuten
Country:
Netherlands
Directed by: Morgan Knibbe
Stars: JP Rodriguez, Benjamin Moen and Francesca Dela Cruz
IMDb score:
7,9 (162)
Releasedate: 22 March 2025
This movie is not available on US streaming services.
Reviews & comments
Hannibal
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- 9380 messages
- 3302 votes
A great film about the ruthless sex industry in the Philippines. Heartbreaking and poignant scenes, and leaving the theatre with a stomach ache.
Translated from Dutch · View original
mrklm
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- 11629 messages
- 10041 votes
Eleven-year-old Ginto spends most of his days on the streets of Manila with his friend Jojo [John Michael Toling] while his sister Asia [Francesca Dela Cruz] works as a dancer and sex worker in a club where mostly wealthy tourists spend their money. Glue sniffing gives Ginto a glimpse of the 'Spout of Earthly Pleasure' and that tastes like more. Instead of begging for money, he wants to sell crystal meth. Meanwhile, a Dutch tourist [Benjamin Moen] is looking in vain for an online girlfriend and finds what he really wants in Manila's red light district. Ninety minutes of breathtaking filming, sharply edited and sublimely acted (especially by the young cast) is a razor-sharp dissection of the extreme differences between rich and poor in the Philippine capital, often strikingly shown in an impressive wide shot. But Knibbe and co-writer Roelof Jan Minneboo clearly did not know how the story should end and they ended with a slowly unfolding denouement that you could see coming long in advance and yet another rip-off of Truffaut's Le Quatre Cents Coups.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Drulko Vlaschjan
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- 495 messages
- 432 votes
Wow, what a movie! It has everything, but it never becomes excessive. Children who are both criminal and drug addicted due to hopeless poverty, but are still children. Blossoming sexuality, friendship, grief, prostitution, inequality, pedophilia. And all of that is beautifully filmed, with a number of great trippy scenes (due to drugs and/or trauma).
Of course you saw it coming that both storylines would touch each other at some point, but that didn't bother me at all. The meeting between Grinto and Michael was extremely uncomfortable and horrible. It's great that the makers managed to portray Michael as a human being, not as a horrible monster. He himself will probably be the first to think that he should be punished for his actions, but you still feel for him.
Hopefully the film will find the large audience it deserves. Because those six votes currently on MM, that is of course far too few for this gem.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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