You don’t want to miss the CineFilipino entry, Ang Kwento ni Mabuti if only for Nora Aunor, whose peerless, award-worthy portrayal and magnetic presence give director Mes de Guzman’s visually and thematically compelling drama a spare but forceful elegance—and its reason for being!
The Superstar is by no means the movie’s only attraction. In fact, with Mabuti, De Guzman (Diablo, Ang Daan Patungong Kalimugtong) delivers his most accessible film to date—an affecting and more easily “relatable” morality tale built around its lead actress’ thespic tour de force.
Aunor portrays Mabuti dela Cruz, a 58-year-old healer who lives in poverty-stricken Sitio Kasinggan in Nueva Vizcaya with her surly mother, Guyang (Josephina Estabillo), luckless son Ompong (Arnold Reyes), loveless daughter Angge (Mara Lopez), and her four fatherless granddaughters.
Simple pleasures
Life is hard, but that doesn’t stop the cash-strapped but cheerful grandmother from basking in the simple pleasures of barrio life—until a letter demanding payment for an overdue loan compels her to take the five-hour trip to the big city to ask for financial reprieve.
Mabuti’s life takes a fateful turn, however, when she meets friendly stranger, Nelia (Sue Prado), who ends up giving her more than just sweet delicacies to feast on (no spoilers here)—a heady mix of moral contradictions that Aunor juggles with subtlety and skillful relish—and a Solomonic dilemma that De Guzman presents in a deceptively simple but stirringly effective manner.
The gorgeously photographed production gets off to a slow start, and its “supernatural” flourishes are sometimes a little heavy-handed. But, De Guzman’s unsentimental handling of its allegorical and potentially melodramatic elements lends the film a gritty emotional heft that its intuitive lead actress mines incisively and judiciously—no emotion is manipulated and not a single tear shed is unearned!
Light moments
It’s refreshing to see the actress juggling her character’s pathos with the unforced humor she generates in the production’s light moments. What’s even more astounding is the fact that Aunor doesn’t require long and flashy lines to relay Mabuti’s carefully calibrated tale well—she can tell it just by using her expressive face and those fabled orbs to shuttle between contrasting emotions.
The role is a tough row to hoe, even for an experienced thespian like Nora, who isn’t tasked to intone crowd-pleasing dialogue or “sell” overly dramatic sequences. Just the same, she delivers her Ilokano lines believably, as if she grew up speaking them. And, unlike some self-indulgent actors, she knows how to make it look effortless and heartfelt.
Ironically, it’s the movie’s other adult actors who occasionally appear rigid and mechanical when they’re faced with the formidable challenge of sharing the spotlight with her. It’s a risk you have to face when you’re acting with a gifted actress like Aunor—if you let your guard down, she’ll chew up the scenery and “eat” you alive!
An Excellent But Challenging Morality Tale
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.
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.
