Meantime, wanting on the newest obtainable copy– if reminiscence serves, a Cinema One video from the Cinematheque Francais again in 2006– puzzled if the movie may stand a rewatch, even in a comparatively cruder state of restore. 

We’re acquainted with the premise: Bona is a middle-class teen fixated on aspiring actor Gardo (Philip Salvador), and casting Nora Aunor– then the Philippines’ largest star– as mentioned admirer tickled the imaginations of native movie fanatics (however not most of the people, the movie was not a industrial success). Name this Aunor’s covert critique of the followers that made her well-known and of her personal messianic persona– one revealed to be pathetically self-sacrificing, the opposite monumentally self-absorbed; they meet and spin off in a dance of mutual destruction. 

Movie opens in a state of tumult– The Black Nazarene, a darkskinned picket Jesus with crucifix on one shoulder, mounted on a motorized carriage and paraded outdoors of Quiapo Church. Crowds swirl about hauling rope (to clear a path?), tossing rags that the attendants choose up, wipe throughout the statue’s face and cross, toss again (the determine supposedly possesses therapeutic powers which are one way or the other handed on within the rags). 

The huge photos of the Nazarene shot verite type serves as Brocka’s large-scale introduction to the theme of unblinking unthinking idolatry– a swarthy icon concurrently commemorated (paraded earlier than the church) and humbled (topic to Roman torture); Nora is equally commemorated and humbled, as star of the movie enjoying the lowliest of the low. 

Besides within the church procession you see the act of worship carried out as large-scale spectacle in all its horrible grandeur; Brocka for his movie zooms in to seize the act of worship as private drama, a narrative unnoticed by everybody besides the filmmaker’s stressed digicam. 

The movie rapidly establishes its premise, spends time including element: once we first see Gardo he is strolling previous Bona, one in every of his many women clinging to 1 arm; when Gardo is crushed up by 4 males (the plot growth neatly defined away as a complication from one in every of Gardo’s amorous affairs) Bona spends the evening caring for him, and subsequent day is whipped by her father for not coming house. Bona would not resist the whipping, however neither does she completely submit; she finally ends up at Gardo’s doorstep asking for shelter in trade for– nicely, cooking, cleansing, laundering, something that he wants completed. 

Gardo agrees reluctantly– at this level he considers her a loyal help, a crutch greater than something. What he would not realize– and what most folk watching appear unaware of– is the fragile balancing act Aunor and Brocka and Salvador keep between the 2: the rising dependence Gardo has on Bona, Bona’s growing passive-aggressive jealousy over Gardo. We will say Gardo has the higher hand, even slaps her round occasionally, however as soon as he is vented his anger he typically relents and treats her kindly; at one level when she’s tossed the umpteenth one-night stand out the door, Gardo truly stops bringing them house, at the very least for some time. Bona has rising stature in Gardo’s world, whether or not Gardo likes it or not. 

Then there’s Nilo (Nanding Josef), a neighbor of Gardo’s who has fallen onerous for Bona. Nilo supplies intriguing distinction to Gardo’s handsome narcissism– he is painfully self-conscious, and shy; in some ways he is like Bona, a largely ignored nonentity who has to look elsewhere for which means in his life. In Gardo’s scheme of issues Nilo counts for nearly nothing; in Bona’s he is beneath contempt– if she is nothing in Gardo’s world then Nilo, who loves her, is lower than nothing. 

Nilo does have one particular capability: he sees Bona. He appreciates her as an individual, admires her pure heat and goodness and is obsessed with her shy mouse magnificence. Maybe one purpose Bona finds Nilo so annoying is as a result of she’s lurked within the margins of Gardo’s universe for thus lengthy she finds the highlight Nilo trains on her unnerving– she would not need to be observed, not by anybody besides Gardo, and even with Gardo she would not demand to be the middle of his life, only a satellite tv for pc in fixed orbit. She needs to stick with him it doesn’t matter what, shut by if not beside; folks like Nilo threaten that equilibrium, and she or he dislikes it. 

However even that evaluation is incomplete: Nilo has one different particular capability, and that’s the capability to develop, regulate, develop past his authentic forged. He escapes the lure of unrequited love, presumably as a result of he is not particularly good-looking, or significantly obsessive; he simply is, a fairly balanced, moderately sane younger man. As written, Nilo has the potential to be terminally uninteresting; as performed by Josef with unalloyed simplicity he is the one breath of sanity on this lurid melodrama, the surprising ethical middle on this in any other case offcenter movie. 

It pained Philip Salvador to understand his Gardo was so repugnant he wouldn’t win a singe appearing award that 12 months; it ought to have dawned on him (and on everybody else dense sufficient to confuse character and creator) that his portrait was so deftly sketched, drew so deeply from his interior insecurities and real-life points as an actor that he could have delivered the efficiency of his profession. 

Aunor’s best-known function is the countryside prophetess in Ishmael Bernal’s Himala (Miracle), the place she would not play a personality actually however a spiritual determine, an icon, her darkish petite determine embodying the mysteries of a universe that will or could not comprise a god (it is the anomaly that provides the movie its energy). 

Aunor’s equally identified for taking part in the smallfolk, the oppressed, the diminutive maiden endlessly threatened by overseas powers or the male patriarchy or no matter has endangered our nation at one time or one other, in a method or one other, who one way or the other manages to stand up regardless of her lack of stature and present the resilience of the Filipina.  

However I submit in Bona Aunor not solely performs the function fantastically she leans into it, performs it to absolutely the hilt, uncovers all types of nuances and darker implications. Ever oppressed, she’s able to oppressing; ever ignored, she is going to demand consideration; ever manipulated or humiliated, she will (passive-aggressively) manipulate and humiliate and inflict as a lot struggling as is inflicted on her. Her sisters in cinema are legion: Glenn Shut’s Alex Forrest, Kathy Bates’ Annie Wilkes, Isabelle Adjani’s Adele H.– however Aunor performs Bona with masterful subtlety and 0 caricature and Brocka captures that efficiency with consummate talent. The movie is not only a tremendous movie it incarnates the virtues of Philippine cinema at its finest: simplicity of story, sincerity of intention, and a white-hot core of ardour that units the very seas boiling.