Jane Ciego, a successful actress, produces her own film to gain respect from the industry. During the film production, she is involved in an accident that leaves her disabled. She is left in a secluded house to avoid more attention from the press, under the care and supervision of her husband, Carlo and a cruel, unusual nurse named Lilibeth. As days go by, she descends into insanity as she experiences horrors and madness while being trapped in her own home.
Cast
Iza Calzado as Jane Ciego
Ian Veneracion as Joshua
TJ Trinidad as Carlo
Adrienne Vergara as Lilibeth
Shamaine Buencamino as Jillian
Audie Gemora as Lexter Palao
Stephanie Sol
Michael de Mesa
Star Orjaliza
Production
Director Jerrold Tarog pitchedthe idea for Blisswhich composed of five storiesright after the Philippine commercial release of Heneral Luna, a film that he also directed. His first choice for the lead role had been Anne Curtis but the latter turned it down. After auditioning several actresses, the role eventually went to Iza Calzado. Tarog took roughly three to four months to write the screenplay. He credited foreign films such as Ingmar Bergman's Persona, Misery, and anything by Japanese director Satoshi Konmost notably his films Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress as inspirations in crafting the film. Tarog scored the film for about three weeks.
Bliss first premiered in Japan, as an entry to the 12th Osaka Asian Film Festival held from March 3 to 12, 2017. The film was well received during its run at the festival. Accordingly, the festival awarded Iza Calzado the Yakushi Pearl Award for Best Performer award which she accepted on March 11. In the Philippines, the film was originally rated "X" by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board due to its depiction of excessive nudity and violence, and masturbation, deeming it unsuitable for public consumption. One of the board members noted the nudity to be "gratuitous". The producers held a special free screening of the uncut version at the Cine Adarna in the University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City on April 3, 2017. On April 5, Tarog confirmed through his Instagram profile that the film had been reevaluated to an "R-18" rating without cuts.
Reception
Oggs Cruz of CNN Philippines called it "...a well-crafted film, one that even outshines Heneral Luna in terms of consistency, and heck, even ambition." He concluded that Bliss is a film "whose pleasures aren’t immediate. It isn’t as emotionally rousing as Heneral Luna or Sana Dati, whose themes of nationalism or romantic love, respectively, are things that provoke effortlessly. Bliss seems to be more cerebral, a work that forces its viewers to think before they feel." Rose Carmelle Lacuata of ABS-CBN News said that Iza Calzado's performance "...was able to effectively play the role of an actress trapped in her own world. It is not surprising that she was given the Yakushi Pearl Award for Best Performer in the 2017 Osaka Asian Film Festival." Jam Pascual of The Philippine Stars "Young Star" column said "Bliss is a brainy change of pace... he artistic merits of the film alone should be enough to validate this film's existence both Iza and Adrienne shine in their roles, with the latter so terrifying she makes the maid from Get Out look like Winnie the Pooh.
