Himala

I had the rare pleasure of watching "Himala" by Ishmael Bernal at Imaginasian's NY Filipino Film Festival (2 more screenings are scheduled: Oct. 10 & 15—subtitled, but be forewarned that the print is not that great). It's frankly quite a sad statement for Philippine cinema when audiences flock to watch horrendous films like "Dubai" (destination: Canada!) while a rare classic like "Himala" attracts but a handful of people. (Ironically, both films are written by the same person, writer Ricky Lee.) Like "Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang", "Oro, Plata, Mata", and "Maynila sa Kuko ng Liwanag", "Himala" is a Filipino cinematic giant with a reputation that precedes it yet is, ironically, very hard to find even in the Philippines. For a decade the only version I could get my hands on was a copy of the script but even then it easily became one of my favorites. You can imagine then the high level of expectation I had in anticipation of the film's screening.

It's interesting to finally see Nora Aunor's now legendary performance as Elsa, a simpleton who turns an impoverished village upside down when she claims to have seen the apparition of the Virgin Mary. Aunor is characteristically subtle and holds back for most of the film then lets go a torrent of emotions at the last quarter. Bernal, Lee, and Aunor, legends all, use their cinematic prowess to build crescendo, a frenzy of Third World desperation—poverty, sickness, death—with resulting tension that inevitably explodes in the end. When Elsa gathers her followers near the end of the film we see both Elsa and Aunor as the Chosen Ones in their calling. (Filipinos in the know love to repeat the annoying trivia that she almost won—'She lost by 1 vote!'—the Berlin Film Festival Best Actress award. But since when did almost winning count in any film festival?)

Celebrity, religion, poverty, and fanaticism collide in "Himala", arguably one of the best Filipino films ever made. It is well-made on major counts—acting, writing, and direction—but, more importantly, it asks questions that really matter. In a country overwhelmingly spoon-fed with Catholicism, "Himala" questions the institutions and truths we've created and challenges us to do the same. It's a serious commentary on how myth serves its purpose when truth is too hard to swallow. If you can choose only 1 Filipino film to watch, let it be "Himala".