The movie is about an Ifugao boy and his all-consuming desire to own a pair of shoes. Honestly, I find it a bit hard to be drawn into the story and to sympathize with the boy mainly because I kept thinking, “Hey kid, it’s 2006. You are from the Cordilleras where there are ukay-ukay/wagwag stores in every corner. Surely you can buy a used pair of shoes for P50.”
So I must admit that for most of the movie, my mindset was like, “What is the fuss about? Take the kid to an ukay ukay store and be done with it. It’s not like he is dreaming of a pair of shoes worth P5,000.” I might have been willing to suspend my disbelief if the movie was set in the ’80s where owning a pair of shoes was more of a financial challenge. Or if the boy was dreaming of something that is harder to buy now, say a cellphone or a computer.
Having said that, I would still say that the movie is good and is much much better than the mindless crap that local movie producers are making these days. However, I might have been better off if I just bought a VCD copy of the film since digital movies like Batad really do not project well in movie screens. [Based on experience, much of the color in digital movies gets lost in in the big screen so they sadly end up looking lifeless and grayish.]