A STRANGE FILM FULL OF STRANGERS

Constantino C.Tejero, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 1999

Followers of Mama Guy (that's Nora Aunor for you, no longer Ate Guy, as she now has fans even among the Gen-Xers) came in full force and filled up to the projector room the new art-film theater at Glorietta 4 in Makati, to see their idol in Joel Lamangan's latest outing "Sidhi." Hyped as the first movie event of the year, it opened the sixth edition of the film festival "Pelikula at Lipunan," which runs Feb. 3-23.

Ricky Lee wrote the screenplay, based on the late National Artist for Theater and Literature Rolando Tinio's teleplay "Kuwento ni Ah." So, expect this two-hour ride to be theatrical and literary.

The film did not dissapoint the fans. All the theatrics of Tinio, Lamangan, Lee, and especially Aunor is there. In other words, the classic 'aping-api" Nora Aunor movie.

But this is more than just a fan's movie, as some of the country's leading film and theater artists have contributed to its making. Aside from the four notables, several stage actors are in the cast.

This is the story of Anna, a mute peasant woman (played by Aunor) caught in the whirlwind of sexual passion, puratanical morality, marital intrigue, and homicidal hysteria.

The farmer Salvador Alipio (Ray Ventura) wants to marry off his daughter Anna. His wife Loleng (Angie Ferro)has just died, and he has intimations of his own mortality, thus he wants to secure his own daughter with a husband before he leaves this worls.

It so happens that a fortune hunter, Miguel (Albert Martinez), passes by. And so the story of A begins.

**A different dynamics**

Strangers come and go in this story. One appears from the mountains, becomes Anna's betrothed, and promptly gets killed. Another, Mayang (Glydel Mercado), emerges naked from the lake, befriends Anna, and turns out to be...Yet another "extranjera" (Samantha Lopez, formerly TV comic Graciaaa) falls out of the blue and brings havoc on the serenity of the landscape, then as promptly disappears.

Coincidences bedevil the story. A man gets killed the night he has just made a suit for marriage. Another dies at the exact moment of his daughter's marital rape. A child is being born while two deaths are occuring.

At times one would think it was all Jess Navarro's fault, that his editing is so tight most establishing shots and narrative transitions have vanished so that scenes come out like coincidences. The editing might have even be faulted for leaving no space for character development, thus Martinez's characterization of Miguel has become incredibly flat. That's not the case, however.

Even if the outlandish incidents were based on a true story, viewers would still look for verisimilitude. And as can be seen in all his movies, Lamangan's training in the theater is hardly the technique that can lend credibility on screen. Any intelligent audience knows the stage is governed by a different dynamics.

"Sidhi" is Lamangan's film with the most outlandish story so far, but he was just so lucky he had remarkable artists to work with.

**Visual authenticity**

Romulo Araojo's cinematography beautifies the already beautiful countryside, which sharply contrasts with the human dark that explodes the myth of the Philippine pastoral. Nonong Buencamino's music is properly rustic, though at times it can be too inconsistent, particularly when it sweeps over melodramatic scenes, when what is needed is absolute silence, absolute silence. Tatus Aldana's production design is restrained, sometimes too restrained we kept looking for period details. One would be hard to contextualize the character's behaviors---why the villagers are too puritanical, for example despite the fact that the setting is near Manila---if one has not yet learned that the story happened in the 1950s.

There is no period music in the air, not a transistor radio in sight. Surely people in rural Philippines at that time had one of those? Not even a victrola?

Well, the Hukbalahap is mentioned, and two Huk characters appear, but if the viewer misses a line of dialogue, they could be mistaken for NPAs. Lopez sports what may be the New Look, but it could be '90s reto, you know.

Anyway, Aldana's work lends visual authenticity to the film. In such surroundings, Aunor truly looks like a peasant, and one can smell of "dayami" and carabao hide.

**The grand gesture**

The real strength of the film is the actors, despite their sometimes incredible roles.

In his previous films, Lamangan had the tendency to squeeze out every bit of dramatics from his actors, particularly Aunor, so that the characters often came out OA. Aware that Aunor was good in voice acting, he would make her growl. Knowing how soulful were those eyes, he would make her glower. He couldn't leave her natural gifts alone, so that she'd come on screen as if she were scaring away the children in the audience.

In this film, Lamangan has somehow controlled the acting mannerism of Caridad Sanchez (playing Anna's aunt). And though, again, he has given Aunor all the imaginable dramatics---being mute and simple- minded, battered by her husband at every turn, possessing extrasensory perception, plowing the field with a carabao, somersaulting, killing, self-flagellation, crucifixon---he has restrained the grand gesture, more or less. Fortunately the proceeding looks credible. Aunor, so small a woman, can carry a plywood cross as if it were the sins of the world on her frail shoulder.

She can even be a credible action hero, as witnessed in her final scene with Martinez and Mercado, the action so well choreographed all traces of melodrama dissolve and become irrelevant to the rush of emotions of the moment.

**Surprise performance**

Without a line of dialogue, Aunor uses her face to delineate character and draw pathos. This is a face that's no stranger to emotions, greatly devastated by time and human cruelty. Watch particularly how she builds up those emotions to that final cry.

That is her moment in this film, comparable to all the highlights of her acting career---her weeping at the funeral procession in "Himala," her delivery of "Ang kapatid ko ay hindi baboy-ramo" in "Minsa'y Isang Gamu-gamo," "Sinungaling! sinungaling!" in "Talong taong Walang Diyos," and "Hayop! hayop!" in "Ina Ka ng Anak Mo."

The thespic skils of the other actors are givens. We have known all along Mercado can act since we saw her in Neal Tan's "Ambisyosa" two years ago. That leaves a virtual newcomer to turn a surprise performance...

Lopez, as Miguel's mistress, amkes an in-your-face delivery of the goods. The audience audibly gasped every time she appeared. And when she started to open her mouth, the theater rocked and rolled. Well, she did not exactly steal the lightning from Mama Guy, but she got the thunder.