Review: With a Renewed Faith in Humanity

by JOJO DEVERA, Sari-Saring Sineng Pinoy

On the surface, Ang Kwento Ni Mabuti (CineFilipino, Studio 5, PLDT Smart Foundation, Inc., Unitel Entertainment, Cinelarga Productions, Sampaybakod Productions And Colorista Digital) may seem uneventful. Mabuti de la Cruz (Nora Aunor) goes about her routine on a typical morning with the banal bustle that attends the ritual, except that her family, with her mother and four granddaughters is quite exceptional. The event therefore, ceases to be a mere element of the plot. It is an event that takes in a sense of the total, the totality of society inscribed in a fairly straightforward sequence of incidents that seem to happen in a singular stroke. I say this because such an everyday circumstance translates into a consequence of historical forces congealing to produce precisely an event of this nature with contradictions playing out to generate exemplary pathos and profound perturbation. This operates not merely in terms of discourse but aesthetically as well.

The ethnographic approach of filmmaker Mes de Guzman intimates a stalking effect that threads us through the social thickness of what may appear to be everyday routine. Mabuti's studied visuality enabled by the reliable cinematography of Albert Banzon, mines cinema's ability to evoke a deep sense of space and place. The film's narrative on the other hand is propelled by a sense or vision of transcendence. 

Marked by spare dialogue and frequent silences, Ang Kwento Ni Mabuti is well-served by strong sequences that are vivid and picturesque without lapsing into gratuitous prettiness. Many scenes reveal the distance that Mabuti, covers as she moves into, out of, or across the frame, whether several steps or a few kilometers underscoring the amount of effort involved in changing position, in following a path, in initiating action. For all their flaws, there’s not one unfavorable character here. The grandchildren are good kids and the neighbors are friendly. But a good cry is in store which I can’t divulge without giving away the ending. However, it will leave the viewer with renewed faith in humanity and even in the present state of Philippine cinema.

Nora Aunor delivers her most auspicious performance here since Merika in 1984. Granted that some of her gains were better ones in the barren landscape of the period, it must be said that Aunor could not speak of a single creditable venture in the ’90s worth her legend, notwithstanding the unexpected moments in Bakit May Kahapon Pa? The acting prowess of the country’s acknowledged Superstar would sign off during the decade, replaced by tired responses and mannerisms best suited to impersonation. It is here in Ang Kwento Ni Mabuti that the actress redeems her stature and the command of her vast talent. The performance is shorn of affectation and is nearly flawless, from the subtle movement of neck and eye to wailing by her mother's death bed. At this point, melodrama flirts with melancholy, tragedy with the realism of soap opera, an uncanny liaison that takes us to the most fraught of ties, the most alienating of emotions, and an emergent tone and terrain of affection. 

Mabuti succeeds at opening up spaces to ponder the fraught issues of faith and responsibility well-served by the restrained performances of its supporting cast. Where a more conventional work might fall back on the familiar notion of the presumably redemptive power of a difficult journey, particularly one undertaken for the purpose of discharging a moral duty, the film equivocates, resisting facile sentimentality and choosing to intimate rather than to impose meaning, a strategy fully realized in the character of Mabuti, who is at once resolute with regard to her being. Ultimately, her search has less to do with the fulfillment of an obligation than a confrontation with her inner self, which is both adhesive and solvent in the process of cultivating and constructing a confrontation, Ang Kwento Ni Mabuti suggests what is necessarily arduous and ardently necessary.