Lino Brocka’s Bona (1980) opens to a raucous procession: the Traslación of the Black Nazarene. The procession sees a swarm of bodies converge on Manila’s Quiapo church as a life-sized, 17th century statue of Jesus Christ hauling a massive cross on his shoulder, is lifted down the crowded streets, as if it were drifting atop the waves of spectators. Believing that those who touch the effigy will have their prayers answered, millions of worshippers frantically shove their way toward it, hoping to at least have their rags wiped on the statue’s surface as a sacred keepsake. As the pilgrimage marches forth, a wide shot captures the since-condemned multiplex Life Theater in its heyday, with a sprawling banner for Rampador Alindong (1981), an action B-movie starring actor-turned-senator Ramon Revilla Sr. draped above its entrance. In the very next shot, the camera gradually zooms in on Bona (Nora Aunor), as she watches the proceedings from the sidelines, her piercing gaze packed with nervous longing.
This opening sequence, where the chaos and spectacle of worship are on full display, perfectly sets the tone for Brocka’s newly restored work. A cautionary portrait of self-destructive idolatry, the film follows the middle-class schoolgirl Bona, who drops out of her studies and abandons an oppressive domestic life to move in with meathead bit player Gardo (Philip Salvador). Now living in the slums, Bona slaves away for her idol, preparing meals, fetching water, and bathing the juvenile actor. In the same vein as Brocka’s previous works like Manila in the Claws of Light (1975) and Insiang (1976), the director adopts the aesthetics of a pulpy genre flick to articulate his scathing critiques of Filipino society. Though celebrity obsession has long been a cinematic trope, Brocka rejects the notion that this fanaticism is a one-sided affair. Rather than portray Bona as a psychotic aberration, an extremity of fandom, Brocka spotlights a broader system that runs on the toxic symbiosis between the hopeless masses and false idols.
Aunor, both the lead and the producer of the film, encapsulates this borderline fetishistic attraction between consumer and commodity. Prior to Bona, the actress developed a mass following as a teen idol, topping local billboard and box office charts. It was only in the ‘70s that Aunor began her foray into more mature dramas, making her critical breakthrough in frequent Brocka collaborator Mario O’Hara’s debut feature Three Years Without God (1976). In 1980, Aunor’s subversive turn in Bona marked a turning point for the actress. When a screen goddess is put in the position of one of her potential cultists, the viewer is prompted to interrogate their own relationships to the screen and its personality. In the Marcos Era of martial law, where the individual is drowned in a paralyzing sea of crises—political, domestic, personal—theaters screening action-packed, mildly erotic propaganda films became a site of refuge. Stars also become empty vessels for the dispossessed to pour their lives into, and these celebrities feed off this messianic fervor. Decades later, with the once ousted political dynasty elected back into power, Bona’s message remains alarmingly relevant. Media spectacle is not only a distraction, but it has also become a part of the process that imprisons the masses with a faux democracy run by celebrities and backed by oligarchs.
Bona screens tonight, December 6, and until next week, at Metrograph as part of the series “Nora Aunor: Filipina Superstar.” Filmmaker Isabel Sandoval will introduce tonight’s screening.
