Isang Himala (2024)

Pepe Diokno's Isang Himala (2024)

There are very few Filipino filmmakers who can claim of having ever crafted a tale that is biblical in both its profundity and timelessness. With Ishmael Bernal's Himala (1982), Ricky Lee, who by the time of the film's release has already written screenplays to Mike de Leon's Itim (1976), Lino Brocka's Jaguar (1979), Marilou Diaz-Abaya's Brutal (1980) and Laurice Guillen's Salome (1981), has made a palpable parable of a nation thirsting for salvation, clawing the very bottom of the barrel for any semblance of hope amidst the misery of the times. Himala is groundbreaking for giving birth to an indelible mantra that would forever summarize the country's one-sided love affair with empty deliverance. Since Nora Aunor exclaimed "walang himala" in her iconic raspy alto to a crowd of needy followers, Filipinos have found the apt quotation to remind themselves of not just false prophets but also of their own capacity for greatness. Those lines persisted after decades of being inculcated into our shared consciousness, through incessant lampooning by comedians and Aunor impersonators, through the various references in pop culture, and in a much more germane way, through Vincent de Jesus' musical adaptation that was first staged in 2003. The musical's reach was more limited than Bernal's film, but it cemented the enduring message of Lee's story, tested its gravitas and legacy within a medium that by its very nature of having sung sequences eschews realism for poetics. 

It worked. De Jesus' musical introduced Lee's work to generations raised in a more secular society, where instances of miracles are reported in the news not as a matter of national importance but as strange gossip. The musical allowed Lee's work to be seen by a new audience who are more open to absorb it beyond its immediate sheen of religious commentary, to understand that beyond the miracles it castigates, it also criticizes the permeating psychology that has led the country to jump from 1982's Ferdinand Marcos to 2003's Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and to 2018's Rodrigo Duterte. It is somewhat eerie that everytime Lee's work is restaged, it is under a regime that was born from promises of swift salvation only to result to protracted purgatory. Pepe Diokno's film adaptation of De Jesus' musical arrives at a similar juncture, during a time where the country is bewildered whether the current regime was born out of the heartbreaking defeat of a campaign of hope to one of surfacelevel unity is an acceptable lesser evil to one that had the country woefully turned indifferent to blatant injustices and inhumanity. Diokno's Isang Himala arrives at a time when the country, like the fictional Cupang of the film, is an indisputable purgatory, cursed and confused. 

Something has to be said about Diokno's directorial choices in Isang Himala. The easiest thing to do is to be beholden to the demands of traditional cinema, hold on to expected realism by shooting on location and to pander to commercialism by peppering the adaptation with movie stars. Instead, Diokno chooses to build Cupang from scratch, turning an empty studio into a community weaved from fake shanties, mountains and skyscapes and theater performers. Isang Himala's aesthetic is rarely pretty, although Carlo Mendoza's very precise cinematography turns many of the film's more intimate sequences into heart-wrenching moments of internal turmoil. In one scene featuring Aicelle Santos as Elsa lamenting about her tragic turn, Diokno Mendoza makes use of light and darkness, capturing Santos' distraught face through broken glass, communicating not just the proven fragility of the character's womanhood but also her broken morality that has now been recently exposed by her own decisions. Diokno abandons the convenience of pretty pictures, favoring the overtly manufactured sheen of constructed sets on a soundstage, relying heavily on the his thespians performances to conjure all the poignant authenticity of Lee's material that the purposeful stylization rebuffs.

There is more insight to this directorial choice than Isang Himala's obvious homage to its theater roots. By turning Cupang and its surroundings into a man-made spectacle, Diokno enunciates the idea that it isn't just the miracles of Elsa that are fabricated, everything, from the curses, sins, shallow virtues and even the repercussions of their fickle faith, is a product of humanity's frailty and reliance on supposed grander powers. Isang Himala, in its design and narrative turns, focuses on humanity's lack of agency, how all the characters are beholden to their fates that have been assembled by a bombardment of corrupted histories, political corruption and man's innate violence. Everytime a character has a chance to get out, poverty gets in the way, rape gets in the way, death gets in the way. Lee's story is a miserablist masterpiece, and Diokno deeply understands this by ensuring that the truest things in his film are all the emotions sung and expressed by his cast.

Isang Himala is not a perfect film. Its loyalty to De Jesus' adaptation leads to an unwieldy flow, with some songs that would have worked in a theater setting feeling somewhat redundant. However, it is also this imperfection that makes the viewing of Isang Himala almost a counter-religious experience. After a while, the deliberately grim songs resemble chants, adding more cynicism to material's critical approach to blind faith and fate. The film never intended to be simply entertaining, despite its being a musical. From beginning to end, it embraces an atmosphere of pain and anguish, with the very sparse moments of fun, such as when Kakki Teodoro allures her customers in her brand new cabaret, being attended by caution and later on, histories of pain and abuse. The film is clear and precise in its indictments of a society consumed by its own escapist fantasies. It earned every emotion its indelible climax produces from its audience, whether its shock, confusion, anger or introspection. 

Diokno's work is not a replica of previous works. It shouldn't be seen as one. It's a dire and much-needed reiteration to a nation that is so addicted to noble quotes such as "walang himala" or "never forget," but is in fact quick to forgive, frustratingly quick to forget when faced with flowery but empty promises of scam messiahs.