A different kind of horror

"Mana", written and directed by Gabriel Fernandez and produced by De La Salle-College of St. Benilde, has everything that you could ask for from a Filipino family drama. A dying parent;family bickering and sibling rivalry;tightly-guarded secrets and haunts from the past;a once-powerful clan now on the brink of downfall;a provincial hacienda as a setting;and a wealth to be bequeathed (the film's title).

It now appears that everything is set to proceed accordingly to the requirements of the genre. But then, the director's screenplay is peppered with supernatural elements and ominous figures, and appears to strangely meld together two (or even three) different kinds of genres and Lawrence Fajardo's editing constructs the film like pieces of puzzle being put together that the viewers might become perplexed as to what exactly is going on. It gradually becomes clear that everything is not what it appears to be. Though there are already clues that hint at something sinister (like the menacing pig and dog, the strange whispers and writings on the wall, and the uncanny ritual of the black-veiled women;one of the children even refers to her mother's "killings"), the director's manner of outwardly garnishing the film with melodramatic ingredients (heated confrontations and sentimental moments abound) and Fajardo's deft editing still do not totally give away the film's darkest secret. At least not until the climactic moment wherein the "will" is finally bequeathed.

It's probably worth mentioning that the final confrontation leading to that moment has the surreal air of that family hysteria scene in Peque Gallaga's "Oro, Plata, Mata" (both films are set in Negros and have Fides Cuyugan-Asencio and Cherie Gil as mother and daughter). And now that the matter has been brought to the film's title, allow me to say that "Mana" is a commendable work for its very different take on one of Philippine folklore's popular creatures. It does so with virtually no blood and gore and in the most economic means possible (happening only within a day's span and in an almost single setting). Unique even is its style of overcoating the horrific atmosphere with the discernible conventions of a Pinoy melodrama. It can be put on the same class as Jerrold Tarog's "Punerarya" (an episode in SRR).

It's interesting to note that within the same week, the two films that this film junkie saw - "Nebraska" and "Mana" - though different in mood, style and agenda, both deal with a child's loving commitment to fulfill a parent's last, even dying, wish.

The dying matriarch who is about to give something to her children in ''Mana''