• Michael Mirasol of Manila
Regardless of how one feels about the Vatican and its handling of its recent crises, one cannot help but doubt how much we feel let down. Religion of any sort has long been regarded as our moral authority. Some today will think it is outdated, others still necessary.
Everyone should be able to believe want they want to, but there is no doubt that when it comes to belief, there is nothing quite as dangerous as blind faith.
If there was ever a film about the evils of blind faith, it is Ishmael Bernal's Filipino film HIMALA (meaning "miracle" in Tagalog). And among films involving religion, it is unique in its brave stand against it, long before the last 25 years or so, where it has become fashionable enough to do so.
The film is set in a provincial town, beset by poverty, disease, and harsh climate. Elsa (Nora Aunor), one of its residents, claims to have seen the Blessed Virgin Mary atop a barren hill at the town's outskirts. Soon she is associated with healing the sick. Several visitors become dozens, dozens become hundreds, and before you can say hallelujah, she becomes a news sensation.
Good publicity brings good business. Her fame even brings tourists. Orly (Spanky Manikan), an out-of-town filmmaker, comes to film Elsa's exploits, more skeptical than curious. Another significant arrival is Nimia (Gigi Dueñas), Elsa's close childhood friend, who has returned from the big city (Manila) where she fled prostitution. With the number of people visiting the town, she puts up a cabaret, which surely serves more than song and dance.Mirasol's video review:
Then something befalls Elsa and her confidante Chayong (Laura Centeno) which portends the end of their good fortune. It is followed by a cholera outbreak which Elsa cannot heal. The deaths that result elicit the town's blame. Tourists stop coming, a wealthy patron is murdered, a cherished friend commits suicide. Elsa blames herself for everything. And that's not the end of it.
Many essays that have cited the film note Elsa's healings, but is there really anyone in the film who is directly healed as a result of her? We are told of her miracles, we see her devotees, we even see her go through the motions. But there is not one scene where an ailment disappears, where a suffering is lifted, or where thanks is given. It cannot be coincidental. Bernal emphasizes that seeing is believing, at least to himself.
The film likes to focus at the seemingly illogical decisions impoverished people make for the sake of being devout. The town is almost desperately poor. Makeshift hostels are put up to cater for foreigners and their indiscretions, but personal fortunes are sacrificed to stay holy. Nimia gets criticized for putting up what is essentially a strip joint, but in a desolate area where nothing seems to grow, it puts food on the table for those who work there.
Though the film may seem against religion, it doesn't take pot shots at the Church. Remarkably, one of the film's most sane characters is the town's priest (Joel Lamangan who is today a successful Filipino director), who is also skeptical of Elsa's gifts. Whatever his reasons are for doing so, the words he imparts to his flock are restrained and thoughtful.
Nora Aunor is an actress of legendary proportions in the Philippines, whose reputation was most likely canonized by this film. Though she can act with the best of them, what draws Philippines audiences to her is her commonality. She truly looks like an ordinary Filipina, but her acting instincts are at par with the best in knowing how to draw mass sympathy. Here she is, as Filipino film critic Noel Vera best puts it, Bernal's "enigma," dousing any suspicions or presumptions we have of her. Whatever Elma's reasons are, they remain her own, right down to the end.
The film is has many weaknesses. For Filipinos, the dialogue though smartly written is far from genuine. With characters always speaking sequentially, at times it feels like a radio drama play. (but compared to mainstream Philippine cinema, it will feel like a breath of fresh air). Apart from Nora Aunor, the acting is almost completely restrained, with hardly any emotional exclamations of any kind, until the end that is (perhaps it is meant that way to serve a genuine horror at the film's climax). Several events serve no genuine purpose than plot points (Why did Elsa do what she did at the beginning? Why did Orly not act? How could the outrage at Elsa towards the end happen so quickly?), and the explanations behind them, if any, are unbelievable.
Yet these failings fail to derail Ishmael Bernal's mission, which is to show how we disgrace ourselves once we fail to question our most cherished beliefs. We are shown people sacrificing their livelihood, families, and futures, all for the belief that God will help those who do not help themselves. We hear about this in industrialized nations such as the US, but it happens all too often in third world countries as well. And the films mass gatherings, especially in the film's final sequence, are more horrifying than any mass zombie attack. The desperate hope these people display hold a mesmerizing power of hopelessness.
The Philippines is a country where the Catholic Church rules. Divorce and abortion are illegal. Clergymen interfere in politics routinely. Sex education is labelled as a work of the devil. Forgiveness is as easy as sin (Wiki "Imelda" and "Erap"). Ishmael Bernal's HIMALA truly was our cinematic miracle. It confronted our diseased culture of blind faith and asks us to question what is right, and not to be one of the mindless zombies crawling up a hill on its knees.
Reply to: Religion of any sort has long been regarded as our moral authority.
Only in backward countries. Europe, especially England, has become fed up with "moral authority" especially as more Muslims come into the country and claim to represent a "moral authority" at a time when young women are beheaded by fathers and brothers as "honor killings". Why were they killed? Many times, because the women wanted to choose their own husbands, instead of being sold to old men.
The Catholic Church has admitted that Africa is the only place they're going to gain new converts.
Reply to: Everyone should be able to believe want they want to,
Do you really want to support the martyrs who crashed jets into the World Trade Centers so they could become martyrs for THEIR beliefs?
Reply to: It is followed by a cholera outbreak which Elsa cannot heal. a cherished friend commits suicide. Elsa blames herself for everything.
Well, that's how you make a movie. You focus tightly on one person, and make everything in the movie pivot around them.
In real life, people don't blame themselves for an epidemic of cholera. That's the result of bad logic and being taken in by a scam.
Reply to: The Philippines is a country where the Catholic Church rules. Divorce and abortion are illegal. HIMALA confronted our diseased culture of blind faith and asks us to question what is right, and not to be one of the mindless zombies crawling up a hill on its knees.
The solution is easy. Walk away from religion. If you watch a Christmas service from the Vatican, with five hundred grown men in dresses, singing the praises of their own delusions, you really wonder whether human beings are intelligent. Every person who enters a Church is asking to be scammed, and have the right to "divorce" taken away.
Hi Bill! Nice to see you've made your way here too. :D
I believe that the men behind 9/11 were misguided, but did they have the right to believe in what they wanted to? Of course. If they don't, no one does.
A response to the comment more than the film review.
"Reply to: Everyone should be able to believe want they want to,
Do you really want to support the martyrs who crashed jets into the World Trade Centers so they could become martyrs for THEIR beliefs?"
One may make a worthwhile distinction between belief and actions directed at others based on that belief.
In any case, bringing up 9/11 as an example of religion falls somewhere between straw man, slippery slope, and ad hitlerum on the logical fallacy chart. I'm all for holding religious institutions accountable for their many deplorable acts. And people who unthinkingly adhere to any doctrine devised by clerical authorities are indeed surrendering their authority over their own lives and, worse, minds. But couldn't one say the same about other types authorities as well, such as political or military or even parental?
To say "Every person who enters a Church is asking to be scammed" is absurd. One doesn't have to be a brainless drone to explore metaphysical questions. Fine -- don't call it religion. Call it philosophy, which can be divided into metaphysics and ethics. Like it or not, some of the deepest thinkers in history have dealt with metaphysical questions, from Augustine to Spinoza to Emerson to Kierkegaard to Niebuhr to Teilhard de Chardin to Simone Weil and hundreds more. And by "dealt with" I mean in some other way than "this is all BS." Existentialism is a perfectly coherent philosophy, but all philosophy (plus all knowledge and all argument), even the most materialistic (in the philosophical sense) starts with unprovable assumptions. You cannot argue logically from zero, and some questions exist which science will probably never be able to answer or even investigate in a meaningful way.
Religion does indeed do a great deal of harm, as Bernal's film shows, and unthinking followers of doctrine of any kind are easily manipulated. Yet some of the most impressive, intellectual, and kind people I've ever met were convinced of a spiritual reality of one kind or another. I knew a Buddhist priest once (I'm not a Buddhist so I'm not sure which sect) who positively seemed to glow with goodness and humility, but he was also widely read, intellectual, and had a great sense of humor. Maybe he would have been all those things as an atheist, agnostic, Zoroastrian, or Protestant, too, but clearly his beliefs did not turn him into someone worthy of the scorn I detect here.
There's something ugly in the dismissive tone I hear from many atheists when the subject of spirit even comes up, even though I agree with virtually all the specific criticisms of religion they make.
I once taught in a building used as a Unitarian church. In the kitchen hung a sign: "Parishioners are responsible for their own dishes and their own theology." That to me seems wise and practical advice.
Michael,
This is great. I have to watch this movie. It illustrates many of the reasons I love the study of religion.
Omer M
Michael Mirasol fo Manila,
Thank you for the great review. I am from the Philippines (now U.S. resident) and I believe that the movie has a universal impact. Regardless of people's religion, people all over the world have their own belief and faith. If their belief or faith materializes, I think it is considered a miracle.
Hi Roger, thanks for including the review of the classic Filipino film HIMALA in your journal.
I am a big fan of yours and whenever I want to watch a movie I make sure I read what you say about it first.
When I watched Himala after it won the CNN Awards, my first reaction was that of deep sorrow over my countrymen's dire conditions (I am from the Philippines) and how the influential leaders in our country continue to manipulate, deceive and steal from them while pounding them to the ground of poverty and ignorance. These evil leaders include our politicians, government workers, and even the church leaders. (How many lands have been illegally acquired by the Catholic church during the Spanish occupation and they were never returned to the people?)
Example, the Catholic Church doesn't want birth control because they know that with the adult members being enlightened and educated, their only chance of maintaining their position as the majority religion in the country is unbridled population growth -- more babies mean more new Catholics.
Like ELSA, anyone who upsets the comfortable quietness in this conspiracy is right away suppressed or in this film -- killed.
The Philippines need more ELSA who will declare freedom from the bondage of blind faith and reveal that -- IT'S ALL A HOAX!
I just hope more and more Filipinos realized their leaders and this religion have been deceiving them all these years.
Thanks again for allowing this into our journal and I hope you get the time to watch it and create a review of your own.
Everybody has the right to believe what they want. But nobody has the right to enforce those beliefs on others.
The 9/11 example is a bad one. Obviously when we say everyone should believe what they want to we are not suggesting murderers should murder because they believe they should, rapists should rape because they believe they should, pedophiles should abuse children because they believe it's ok...and terrorists should not be allowed to terrorize becasue they think they should. That's not what is meant when we say everyone has the freedom to believe what they should.
The idea is that one can believe and one should believe in what they think best conforms to truth. The truth should not hurt other people. Otherwise it's not truth, it's another playground bullying tactic.
Religion is not the problem. People are. If religion was the problem then there would be no crime and more happiness in one of the most secular countries in the world, America. Instead that's the country most chock full of therapists and people on anti-depressants. Why? I'm not saying it's lack of religion. A lot of atheists are perfectly happy. It's the materialism and "mine, mine, mine" which has come with secularism. My point being that religion is not the problem, people are realy great at creating probems for themselves for whatever reasons. Once people get rid of their egos then whether they are priests or mullahs or atheists, they are much better people and the world is consequently a happier place.
Thanks for the kind words.
In the Philippines' case, Religion is a big deterrent to development because its influence is deeply embedded in the daily lives and future of this impoverished nation of mine.
It's an accepted reality that the major government bodies are not just 3 -- but 4. Judiciary, Executive, Lawmaking and there's the Catholic Church.
Everything - from the controversial issues of abortion to the urgent matter of birth control - is being deliberated with the Catholic Church's opinion in prime consideration.
The Big 3 cannot move independently because the President, the judges the politicians - they are all afraid of the Church.
You will see that truth more vividly during this election time when politicians race to get the audience with Church leaders.
As an educated and enlightened citizen, I strongly believe that Filipinos can only move forward if they think, deliberate and decide without worrying what the man behind the confessional wall would say.
This film is great because it dared to attack one of the most powerful institutions in the country.
Time for the Philippines to be unshackled.
Reply to: Everybody has the right to believe what they want. But nobody has the right to enforce those beliefs on others.
If a Muslim converts to Christianity, Islam thinks they have the right to kill them.
Reply to: I have to watch this movie. It illustrates many of the reasons I love the study of religion.
There's a theory that curiosity comes from a perceived "gap in our knowledge." If we're interested in religion, and a film makes us think that our knowledge on a certain subject has a gap, then we might want to watch the movie for answers.
However, religion is complete fiction. Anyone can make up a new religion. George Lucas can make up The Force. L. Ron Hubbard can invent e-meters. Don't fall into the trap of thinking "religious knowledge" is real. Instead, remember that Christianity recruited a lot of followers by promising a Day of Judgment followed by a resurrection of all the dead followed by a Kingdom of God, and 2,000 years later, none of those things ever happened.
Return to Spirituality......Forget about Religion.
My top 5 favorite zombie films in no particular order are Dawn of the Dead (1978 original), Fulci's Zombie, Revenge of the Loving Dead, Dead Snow, and Zombie Holocaust. As you can tell, I'm a fan of Italian horror. Love the classic 80s gut munchers. Day of the Dead (again, the original!) is one of my favorites too.