THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – SHOULD NOT BE LOST
One of the most exciting projects in the repertory circuits is the return to the screen of the work of Lino Brocka (1939-1991), legend of Philippine cinema, through the distributor Carlotta, which distills, to the rhythm of the restorations, films whose importance we appreciate more and more.
Received at Cannes in 1976 with InsiangBrocka tirelessly shot, in a guerrilla economy and at dizzying speed, countless films, up to several per year between the years 1970 and 1990, of which only a small proportion has reached us, and many of which are considered lost. .
A kind of Filipino Fassbinder, killed prematurely at the age of 52, has infiltrated the great popular genres, particularly melodrama (Manila1975), to reveal the deep social divisions and the real living conditions of the people, at a time when the dictatorship (1972-1986) of Ferdinand Marcos weighed on the country.
good (1980) is, in turn, a miraculous film, which has remained invisible since its appearance in the Directors’ Fortnight in 1981, whose original negatives have just been found recently, thanks to the indications left before his death by Pierre Rissient (1936). -2018), great film buff, importer of Asian cinemas. As a title, it is named after its heroine, a middle-class high school student from Manila, played by Nora Aunor, a singing superstar then adored by Filipinos, and also the film’s producer. We discover her from the first images in the middle of a religious procession, where Brocka seems to have dropped her incognito, like a passerby among others (and not without irony).
Voluntary slavery
Bona skips classes and sneaks onto the sets to admire his idol Gardo, a young second-rate actor. One day, she decides to leave everything (her beautiful house, her comfortable life, her education, her family) to move with him, in a miserable shack in the middle of a poor neighborhood. She then becomes his servant, performing his household chores, meeting his needs, without the slightest sign of consideration in return. The young rooster does not spare him any of his escapades, such as coming home at night completely drunk or on the arm of a new girl to spend the night with.
Bona addresses the phenomenon of alalayThese groupies occupy a vague role with a star between assistance and outright exploitation. With this, Brocka points, more broadly, to “fanaticism”, that behavior induced by the society of the spectacle, which covers a perverse form of voluntary slavery. The strong point of the film is that it never seeks to justify or find an explanation for Bona’s choice, which looks at her and only her. The viewer will only have to contemplate it in all its opacity, and until its final, terrifying and liberating consequences.
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