This early shot in Bona (1980) I think says it all.
What's so remarkable about Nora Aunor's face here is just how unremarkable it looks in that sea of faces, standing in the brainfrying streets of Quiapo. The biggest star in all of Philippine cinema crammed in a crowd like sardines in a can, and she doesn't just look as if she doesn't stand out, she looks as if she belonged there, milling among the pious, the pickpockets, the prostitutes, all out in force on the Feast of the Black Nazarene. After all when you think about it: what's the point of appearing as the lead in a Filipino film if you don't look like a typical Filipino?
And Nora didn't just look typically Filipino she looked quintessentially Filipino-- the slim build, the petite stature, the light caffeine skin, the dark hair and even darker eyes, the mole that punctuates one corner of the face.
Even more remarkable than that first glance is how malleable Nora's looks can be, how she can morph almost instantly to represent any number of things: a mousy little daughter here and in Bakit Bughaw ang Langit?; a steely provinciana in Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos; a world-weary nightclub singer in Tatlong Ina Isang Anak; an enigmatic icon in Himala. She can shrink into the background or flash out in anger, break into unforced laughter or do a perfectly timed faceplant from a just-opened doorway. Looking weak she can suddenly turn and overwhelm you with a glare; as you steel yourself for another outburst she cracks and reveals her wounded inner self. She surprises every time, constantly catches you off-guard, is almost impossible to second-guess.
Combine that face and presence with cinematographer Conrado Baltazar's unmatched skill in color and lighting and you have a woman of infinite variety who 'makes hungry where she most satisfies.' This isn't just the first time I've seen the 4K restoration on the big screen but the first time I've seen the film on the big screen, period, and it's a glorious experience-- the sea of heads in the opening sequence, swirling around the massive statue of the Black Nazarene; the squatter area Gardo (Philip Salvador) lives in, as vividly sketched as in Insiang (which Baltazar also lensed) with its muddy alleys and rickety shacks and harsh incandescents; the gorgeous intervals when Bona gazes at the sunset in Manila Bay-- a rare palate cleanser between long sessions of urban squalor-- where a warm glow fills the screen and shows just how lovely Nora can be when gently illuminated. I mourned the loss of color to the only surviving print of Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (one solution to which turned out to be regrading the film in black and white), and realized while viewing this films that yes this is what Baltazar is capable of when his cinematography is allowed to be presented with color palette intact-- in terms of richness of hue and sheer emotional impact, I think his work can stand without embarrassment next to Christopher Doyle's, or even Vittorio Storaro's.
And of course with a star like Nora and an artist like Baltazar, Brocka can only employ a story* that not only brilliantly turns Nora's status on its head, that not only uses the classic Nora trope of the beleaguered underdog but leans hard into said trope, presenting Bona as not just the lowest of the low but willingly allowing herself to be treated that way (of course I've argued that this was actually psychological jiu-jitsu, and that Bona manipulated others through her underdog status as if not more cannily than she herself has been manipulated).
*(by the late Cenen Ramones, a diminutive scriptwriter about as tall (as described by actor/filmmaker Soxy Topacio) as Nora herself, who has done regular work on television but has apparently written only one feature screenplay (tho to be honest if I was that writer and resulting film was Bona I'd die a happy scribe))
I'll also note that as in Insiang Brocka delights in including vignettes of slum life, such as the drinking session that progresses right next to the funeral wake (and the chaos that follows), and Gardo demanding that a neighbor open their front door, only to end up carrying said door-- lifted easily off its frame-- back to his own shabbily appointed shanty (if anything the vignettes are livelier and more wittily drawn than in the earlier film).
I'll also note the clever use of two songs, both times when we see Bona bathing Gardo with warm water: Jimmy Webb's 'MacArthur Park' with its bizarre expression of yearning ("I don't think that I can take it / Cause it took so long to bake it / And I'll never have that recipe again") reflecting Gardo's ambitions to become a movie star and Bona's own desire for Gardo; and-- near film's end-- Burt Bacharach and Hal David's 'Close to You,' as bright and cheerful a song about longing as can be, the perfect counterpoint to Bona's now-hopeless longing to stay with Gardo.
"On the day that you were born," Bacharach and David write "the angels got together / And decided to create a dream come true" Nora is a dream of an actress-- brilliant, thoughtful, volatile, in profound direct contact with the camera and through the camera with our chaotic subconscious selves, always ready to show us our ideals, our fantasies, our deepest fears and ugliest vulnerabilities. With Bona she plays to both: she gives us the fantasy of Philippine Superstar humbling herself to play housemaid not just to an actor but a wannabe actor struggling to find roles, basically the lowest of the low; and she reveals to us the kind of unhesitating unthinking ugly fanaticism we-- in particular we Filipinos, and in particular particular we Noranians-- can open ourselves to when we're not careful. Great film, worth catching on its limited run on the big screen.
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