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".

Frame for frame, Himala (1982) may be the most beautifully shot Philippine film I've ever seen. With a photographer's eye, director Ishmael Bernal (City After Dark, Relasyon) turns an arid, non-descript countryside Philippine town into a mystical place with real people. The Superstar of Philippine Cinema, Nora Aunor, playing the lead role, works with the visual setting as much as it works with her. She's the ever-sad Elsa, an illegitimate child who one day claims, like many of us Filipinos like to do, to have seen the Virgin Mary, who has endowed her with super healing powers. A battle between her and a doubtful, sometimes vengeful, Catholic church ensues, and she starts winning. Throngs of peasant folk travel from afar to get their miracle on, and the once-filled church dwindles to a measly ten people. Is she real, or is it a hoax? For a suffering people short on hope in the faith they were given, and seeking it elsewhere, anywhere - does it even matter? Acting with just her eyes for most of the film, Aunor is mesmerizing. She saves all that pent-up melodrama for the film's final scene, where she reveals herself as a dialectical materialist: "Walang himala! Ang himala ay nasa puso ng tao…ang himala ay nasa puso nating lahat!" (There is no miracle! The miracle is in the heart of a person… the miracle is in all our hearts!). Himala makes a potent, poignant statement on Filipinos' faith, making a subtle connection between the colonial legacy of the church and the suffering that drives us toward and away from it.

I feel like Himala influenced a lot of films that made cinema what it is today.

So many things to take from this film that forever altered my brain. While this film's setting is set during the dark times of Philippine history, I believe, (because of the series of events that has happened), it centers mostly on belief and miracles until everything becomes brutal and eerie.

The film follows our protagonist, Elsa, played by the lovely Nora Aunor, and the people around her in the small town she lives. Each important character has been plagued with different issues of their own- from belief, religion, political views, prostitution, miracle, rape, and murder.

Some of its themes can be a lot to handle because of the tragic scenes.

Even so, it is such an important piece of Philippine cinema that is understandably mesmerizing with its original storyline that is convincing, beguiling, and worth all the watch.

Perhaps I have not written a review it so deserves, but I guess you will just have to see the film for yourself.

"Himala" is Filipino for "miracle" and this is precisely what the movie is. A strong contender for Best Picture in the 1982 Berlin Film Festival and the hands down winner in the Metro Manila Film Festival, "Himala" is one film cineastes must watch if he or she wishes to explore Philippine cinema. Set in a God-forsaken marginal town, "Himala" boasts of a richly textured millieu, a veritable Filipino Nowhereland just waiting for a miracle. And the miracle-incarnate is Elsa, a simple but headstrong young girl who claims to have seen the Virgin Mary and who starts a healing crusade. The complex, highly nuanced role was played by the Philippine's premiere actress Nora Aunor, who missed the Berlin Best Actress award by one vote. Everyone else in the film were thespians from theatre. Loaded with fascinating characters caught in an ideological-moral inferno, the film brings to the fore the complex, harsh social realities that face third world people and how such realities find their way in cultural expressions such as religion. The sensitive direction of the late Ishmael Bernal, the creatively austere camera work, the haunting musical score, and of course, the thespic genius of Nora Aunor make "Himala" a truly great film that merits re-viewing and re-discovery, especially by foreign audiences. The "Via Dolorosa" denouement remains as one of the most riveting scenes I've ever seen in any film. A cinematic miracle, indeed.