By Eric T. Cabahug
InterAksyon.com
Monday, September 23, 2013 · 8:38 pm
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Nora
Aunor’s new film, Mes de Guzman’s “Ang Kwento Ni Mabuti,” is an excellent
companion piece to her previous movie, Brillante Mendoza’s international
award-winner “Thy Womb.”
Both
are portraits of women in life-changing crises that test their tenacity and
character. But while “Thy Womb” ultimately tugs at the heart, “Ang Kwento ni
Mabuti” coalesces in the mind.
Which
is to say that De Guzman’s CineFilipino entry is an even more challenging,
demanding piece.
For
one, it has an even more deliberate pace than the Mendoza opus. It’s also
quieter and much less colorfully ethnographic.
“Mabuti”
is also more of a character study. And it takes pains and considerable time
painting a picture of Mabuti as this sunny, good-natured, cheerful, kind,
helpful, hardworking, firm-footed, tenacious Everywoman who embodies the best
in the Pinoy spirit.
She
is a hilot in a remote village who gets thrown off her bearings when she
discovers a big stash of cash inside her bag on the bus ride back to her
village after a rare trip to the city.
The
money is an unexpected gift, like manna from heaven, that couldn’t have come at
a more opportune time.
Mabuti
and her family (mother and four grandchildren) are facing eviction from its
small property over unpaid taxes. Additionally, Mabuti’s two grown children are
having difficulty making sufficient strides on their own to support their
children, much less guarantee a good future for them.
It’s
the story of Job with a twist. Instead of losing everything, Mabuti is suddenly
given the key to everything. But the question of whether it’s right and proper
for her to use somebody else’s money that was entrusted to her for a different
purpose eats at the morally upright Mabuti.
If
all this sounds rather high-minded, it’s because it is. Mes de Guzman is that
kind of filmmaker.
And
his adherence to spare, naturalistic, life-like presentation (he wrote the
screenplay as well) gives the film a certain chilliness that provides a very
interesting contrast, and friction, to the story’s sun-kissed setting — the
highlands of Nueva Vizcaya.
The
result is an excellent film that’s very easy to admire but not as easy to
embrace on a gut level.
As
for La Aunor, she turns in another miracle of a performance. It’s perfectly
calibrated athough more economical than her celebrated turn as Shaleha in “Thy
Womb”, but no less startling.
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