HIMALA

(CNN's Asia Best Film of All Time..Nora Aunor garnered the Best Actress Nod in 1983 Berlin International Film Festival..Himala in Official Selection in the same festival)

MOVIE REVIEW

Source: Variety, Wednesday, January 26, 1983

French-trained Filipino director Ishmael Bernal has finally reached his creative peak

and total acceptance in the Philippine film industry when HIMALA swept the major

awards at the recent Metro Manila Film Fest and then was invited to prestigiously open

the 1983 Manila International Film Festival. Bernal has long been neglected and he is

the most-nominated Manila film maker for the local critics' derby. His MANILA AFTER

DARK, however, won best picture last year.

HIMALA has also been touted as the first Tagalog picture to have been produced by

the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, an arm of the annual MIFF for 3,000,000

pesos. It will circulate to five leading international filmfests, including the forthcomng

Berlin Film Festival, then to Cannes' Directors' Fortnight.

The film bitingly, hypnotically and realistically captures the mixed-up and often

confused rural Philippine traditions that are full of contradictions quite similar to what

was shown in Francesco Rosi's CHRIST STOPPED AT EBOLI. It is a situation where

religion, fanaticism, superstition and cliched soap opera characters intermix. The film

opens in the dappled and moody darkness of an eclipse which sets the tone of the

supernatural theme that's been blended with the harsh realities experienced by a

young girl who gets victimized by circumstances beyond her control. It is rich in details

of backward village life that should fascinate foreign viewers intrigued with exotic Third

World poverty, hunger, oriental funeral services, physical ugliness and handicapped

human bodies cinematically framed by the magic of faith healing as its main theme.

The provincial town setting is the sleepy town of Cupang (shot on location in lovely

Ilocos Norte) which was supposedly been cursed after driving away a leper. The small,

dissipated and forgotten dusty town without rainfall awakens to exploitation and

commercialism when an innocent girl called Elsa (Nora Aunor) claims to have seen an

apparition of the Blessed Virgin. She later acquires healing powers. Along the lines of

Lourdes, the whole village becomes a bustling commercial venue for mass-produced

statue saints and bottled holy or tonic water. In later excursions into subplots, a close

friend of Elsa who becomes a woman of easy virtue returns to Cupang, a virginal sister

who is totally devoted to the religious mission, some enterprising matrons, then a

kaleidoscopic look at hundreds of sick people with diseased bodies. A pivotal

character is a cynical and young film director (Spanky Manikan) with a conscience. The

latter becomes obsessed in capturing Elsa's healing sessions on celluloid which leads

to his candidly catching on film (by accident) a dark secret of Elsa, a secret which

prompted the suicide of her sister.

Here is an eloquent, powerful film that is full of grandeur and simple segments. It

shows an atmospheric environment where illiterate but adulating, praying crowds

desperate for a cure can be a hostile mob when the miracle they crave for doesn't

materialize.

Nora Aunor as Elsa gives a sensitive, polished and highly passive and consistently low

key performance. She is letter-perfect for the role. Meanwhile, Gigi Duenas (a stage

actress) as a girl on the wrong side of the tracks who operates a cabaret-whorehouse

is singularly brilliant and provides a striking contrast to the spiritual life of Elsa.

If there is anything wrong with the production, it is just the length and repetitious

sequences.

Towards the middle, a weird and starling denouement is shared with the viewers to

sustain their high level of fascination. The Tagalog screenplay is suitably hard boiled

and not affected as in common local features. There is an excellent eerie soundtrack

music.

HIMALA is the kind of quality festival film that brightens the Philippines' tarnished

name in the field of films geared for international consumption and release. The picture

brings out the fact there are more Filipino directors to discover