Magdusa Ka! rates high for its slickness and production gloss. Eddie Garcia is a good director, he stages his scenes well with minimal fuss and a modicum of winning faith in narrative primacy. Viva movies are well-structured, well-paced and at their best show how the cosmopolitan Filipino behave under romantic stress. Such is the case, to a most lamentable extreme, with Magdusa Ka!, it's a well-acted. well-done, tastefully correct in elementary mode. But it is strictly local komiks fare, this well wrought turn of circumstantial twists and escalating conflicts which all spell high drama. Here you have two fine actors, Christopher de Leon and Dina Bonnevie waxing their special onscreen chemistry. De Leon is so good he can, by merely varying his inflection, go through a simple line like Mahal kita... three times and prove sensitive and believable each time. Subtlety of feeling is shared equally well by Dina Bonnevie. They are both aware of the value of underplaying their emotional scenes, so much so that in any confrontation with other thespians who play their roles to the hilt, these two come out on top thorugh the simple process of undercutting. Jaclyn Jose and Dindo Fernando's performance are equally good. Nida Blanca stands out as she compels us to emphathize with her dilemmas as she goes through the process of hatred, then disillusionment towards acceptance and forgiveness. Armida Siguion-Reyna is hampered by her termagant matriarch role, the catch-all character of cruelty spawned by all soap opera dramas of Philippine komiks and telenovelas. And she plays this throughly unbelievable character, typecast as she already is, much to the hilt.
Magdusa's clever twist rightfully undermines the film's incredulous detours brought about by an inane sequence flow. It assumes strong feminist position and transforms female annoyance and obnoxity into virtues and codes for contemporary survival. The director's ability to control a material so complicated in its details and so earnest in its yearning to dramatize rare human conditions. The novelistic narrative may fumble in its attempt to to explore character and weave milieu into dramaturgy, but the film emerges from the thickets with some engaging moments and stirring energies. The fact that the film lasts for hours is testament to sound technical judgement and perhaps to Dina Bonnevie's unwavering commitment to cry a river through and through. Towards the end, motherhood is reinstated as the focus of female essence, a state which transforms her once hated daughter into a nurturing presence suddenly deserving of forgiveness and compassion, here bestowed by the mother, thus instigating the return and triumph of traditional family values. However this concession to melodrama foregrounds the potential power of female bonding, especially in prefiguring the possibility of a non-patriarchal household, thus presenting an alternative that have become unresponsive, at best and oppressive, at worst.
Directed By: Eddie Garcia
Screenplay: Orlando Nadres
Story By: Pablo Gomez Serialized In Tagalog Klasiks
Cinematography By: Jose Batac, Jr.
Musical Director: George Canseco
Film Editor: Ike Jarlego, Jr.
Production Design: Manny Morfe
Produced By: Viva Films
Release Date: October 22, 1986
Magdusa's clever twist rightfully undermines the film's incredulous detours brought about by an inane sequence flow. It assumes strong feminist position and transforms female annoyance and obnoxity into virtues and codes for contemporary survival. The director's ability to control a material so complicated in its details and so earnest in its yearning to dramatize rare human conditions. The novelistic narrative may fumble in its attempt to to explore character and weave milieu into dramaturgy, but the film emerges from the thickets with some engaging moments and stirring energies. The fact that the film lasts for hours is testament to sound technical judgement and perhaps to Dina Bonnevie's unwavering commitment to cry a river through and through. Towards the end, motherhood is reinstated as the focus of female essence, a state which transforms her once hated daughter into a nurturing presence suddenly deserving of forgiveness and compassion, here bestowed by the mother, thus instigating the return and triumph of traditional family values. However this concession to melodrama foregrounds the potential power of female bonding, especially in prefiguring the possibility of a non-patriarchal household, thus presenting an alternative that have become unresponsive, at best and oppressive, at worst.
Directed By: Eddie Garcia
Screenplay: Orlando Nadres
Story By: Pablo Gomez Serialized In Tagalog Klasiks
Cinematography By: Jose Batac, Jr.
Musical Director: George Canseco
Film Editor: Ike Jarlego, Jr.
Production Design: Manny Morfe
Produced By: Viva Films
Release Date: October 22, 1986
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