By
Lyndon Maburaot
tablestretcher
September
26, 2013
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In Mes de Guzman’s
Ang Kwento ni Mabuti, narrative progression is spare and monotony and
nothingness are the point. Nothing happens in the first half of the film, and
that is deliberate. The story to which everything clings to is skeletal and the
follow-ups are far between, sidetracked by inactivity and lackadaisicalness: a
letter arrives, threatening Mabuti’s household of an impending confiscation of
their land for an unsettled tax payment overdue. Mabuti summons the help of the
Barangay Captain, who in turn recommends a land officer from a nearby town who
can assist her. On her way home from the town, an incident happens that leaves
her with a bag full of money. For a strapped like her, what she will do with
it? For a full-length film, the said narrative arc is so thin one may dismiss
it as insubstantial. Or a mere excuse for de Guzman’s more pressing concern: an
ethnographic roundup of a remote countryside, Sitio Kasinggan in Nueva Vizcaya,
where stretches of greens, big mountains and high trees are a reflection of how
far removed the place is from civilization. The inhabitants of the sitio are
poor, relying on crops and homegrown livestock for survival; the kubos are far
apart, the sick prefers faith healing than medicine. The sitio, like all
barrios and barangays in the Philippines, is ruled by a Barangay Captain, and
he, like most crooked political leaders, is housing a small-time gambling
operation, with amassed coins, a revenue from it, taking forever to count. This
time of the year, election is coming up and he is egging on the sitio’s faith healer, Mabuti, to run.
In here, transportation is difficult. The roads are narrow. The towns are far
apart, taking more than five hours to get to the other town. Leftists hide in
the thickness of the forest. And occasional gunfight with the military ensues.
The film is so keen on mapping out a culture we might as well be living there.
And that is what sets this film apart. The skeleton is basic but the meat and
the muscles covering it are sufficiently bulky there is no way the whole
package can’t be authentic. And this ethnographical astuteness is served its
purpose aesthetically when, later on, Mabuti is temporarily displaced from the
sitio. She goes to the provincial capital to process something and she suddenly
becomes a stranger, the place she has been accustomed to now far from her. She
has to contend with vaster new environment where people she meets are
strangers, the houses bigger and closer against each other. When she has to
settle for the deserted side of the street to sleep away the night, herself
helpless and alone, we suddenly become aware of where she came from. There is
no truer ethnographic sketch of Sitio Kasinggan than seeing it from afar, and
in the dead of the night.
And for all its
ultra-realism on the depiction of a culture, it doesn’t stay bounded by its
matter-of-factness. The very first scene shows us with Mabuti clutching a bag,
her eyes peeled in stupefaction, while the fogs and the clouds impossibly form
and unravel and reshape before her. This
kind of providential intervention becomes propelling factor to the narrative
every now and then. Sitio Kasinggan, by default, is still steeped in tradition
where faith healing is yet a vital part of its way of life. Where a snake bite
or a dog bite is cured by the power of white stone and mere application of
saliva. How could that be when the rabies is not sucked out from the system?
Science does not figure here, or logical scrutiny of what is transpiring. When
Mabuti is confused whether to return the money or not, circumstances give her
the answer. On her way to the Barangay Captain, where she plans to surrender
the bag full of money, the weather suddenly changes, showing her signs,
trapping her. Not entirely convinced, she goes to the military camp to
coordinate about the return of the money, but the camp is, again, suddenly
deserted. Some unknown forces are taking place! Humongous insects flock
unexpectedly. A drizzle of snow comes one night. A path blocked by landslide becomes rapidly
and miraculously passable. That path is leading to Sta Clara where Mabuti must
need to go. When Mabuti dillydallies to
get Nelia’s daughter from Sta Clara as instructed, an impossible number of jeepneys
crisscross before her, all of them flashing the Sta. Clara signboard, luring
her rather forcibly to get in. The events here are not decided by human being
alone. Something circumstantial helps things take form. The film, therefore,
becomes allegorical in harnessing its points, giving its entirety an air of
extraordinariness.
What is further
admirable from the minimalist way de Guzman shoehorns his message is his
surefooted dedication to create an atypical character at/as the center of all
of these. Screenwriting books and workshops would always insist on an active
protagonist, one who always finds ways to achieve his goal. In here, the
heroine is the opposite, in a way, breaking the said rule. De Guzman’s heroines
are of this kind. His lead character in Diablo, Nana Lusing, is an old woman living
alone, abandoned by her children. Her days are spent on tuning in to an old
radio and observing the time pass by. In Ang Kwento Ni Mabuti, de Guzman
further complicates his heroine, by making her unreceptive and later on shaking
her moral compass to check how she, with that passivity, will react. Everything
about this film is an inspection of a character. For instance, Mabuti’s son and
daughter give her character a weight, a baggage to carry on her shoulders.
Both’s children, all four girls with one named Kate Winslet, they left with
Mabuti to raise. And yet, Mabuti remains positive and uncomplaining. She tends
to her granddaughters lightly and even goes playing with them sometimes. Her
moral values are gleaned from how she deals with her daughter, Angge (Mara
Lopez), whose three children are fathered by three different men, now all
vanished from Angge’s life. Mabuti is never judgmental with Angge. Is she just
too forgiving? Or is just too naïve? This unconditional acceptance is further
bolstered when Angge gets pregnant again for the fourth time and, again, from a
different man. Her reaction to the said news is not the usual: no, we don’t
hear a shouting marathon of rage and condemnation. Instead, she pulls her
daughter closer, wraps the latter with willing arms, her hug warm and
reassuring.
Mabuti’s mother,
Guyang (Josephine Estabilo), is utilized to give her character’s outlook a
counterpoint. Where Mabuti is lax and democratic (she lets the grandchildren
be, playing all day), Guying is strict (obliging the great-granddaughers to
help more in the household chores); where Mabuti is sunny, Guyang is cranky.
And every which
way available, de Guzman keeps delineating Mabuti’s character. When one time
Mabuti passes by Angge’s store unannounced and witnesses her daughter’s current
man copulating with another woman, she is taken a back. But her surprise is
just a natural spur-of-the-moment reaction. She does not tell her daughter
about what see saw afterwards. And this
character signification peaks when de Guzman gives Mabuti a bagful of money to
test her morality, character, passivity and the like.
Characterization
is likewise employed as a narrative tool. Mabuti by nature has a ready smile.
She grins when she is happy, when she interacts with the granddaughters, when
she crosses with everyone in the street. A letter presenting her of a possible
land problem does not wipe from her mouth’s corners that upward curve. Poverty
does not either. Or even problems her son and daughter bring her. This is
characterization physicalizing her mindset, her simplicity and her principles
(or the absence of it). But when an opportunity (the big amount of money) is
suddenly presented to her, she starts to reassess her circumstances and her
being. And then the smile becomes scarce.
And playing this,
Mabuti, is Nora Aunor. Just as when one thought Nora gave her all as barren
wife in Thy Womb, Ang Kwento ni Mabuti comes on the heels, the actor sealing
her return as a consummate performer. Gone are Nora’s tics of the nineties, her
employment of unnecessary hand gestures, her accentuated delivery of lines.
Nora’s appreciable restraint in Mabuti is matched by providing peculiarity to
the character. Where the characterization requires an ever-smiling heroine,
Nora heaps it, the easy grins, with touches of simper. And the consistency of her moderated
rendition of Mabuti is further authenticated by the absence of real highlight.
What she shows here is surprising. With a tumultuous personal life hardening
every corner of her being, she couldn’t be capable of portraying simplicity at
her purest! It is akin to crossing to the opposite side of the pole to convince
us she is rightly there, all along, feet firmly planted. But she does! In here, she unlearned all
those layers she acquired through the years, peeled off all shields, all
protectors, until she is stripped to her barest. And what is left of her, the
residue we got here in this film, is, sustained by a fully-realized character,
a graceful performance, may be for the books, and unlike any other we’ve seen
from her to date.
9 STARS
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