Charo Santos’s comeback with revenge in Lav Diaz’s revenge film

Charo Santos’s comeback with revenge in Lav Diaz’s revenge film

By Michelle Chermaine Ramos

TIFF FILM REVIEW: Ang Babaeng Humayo (Lav Diaz):

What would you do if you were released after being wrongly imprisoned for thirty years and discovered you were framed by someone you once loved? Ang Babaeng Humayo, loosely inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s short story “God Sees the Truth, But Waits” and directed by Lav Diaz, tells the story of Horacia Somorostro brilliantly played by Charo Santos-Concio. The movie won the Golden Lion award at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival and is Charo Santos’s major comeback on the big screen after a long hiatus from acting when she spent her time producing some of the most successful shows on TV as the president and CEO of ABS-CBN before retiring earlier this year.

Charo Santos in Ang Babaeng Humayo

Horacia is a mild-mannered former school teacher who spends half her life in jail wrongly convicted for murder. She is loved by her fellow inmates and spends her time educating and telling their children stories. One day, her fellow inmate and close friend Petra (Shamaine Buencamino) makes a shocking revelation by confessing that she committed the murder that Horacia was framed for and that the crime was orchestrated by Rodrigo Trinidad (Michael De Mesa), Horacia’s ex- boyfriend.

The film opens showing life in a correctional facility and Diaz captures the mundane routine within those walls where time seems to stand still for the inmates, as Charo Santos observed from her interviews with female inmates when she did her research for her role. Upon her release, Horacia goes home and discovers what transpired during her long absence and breaks down, overcome with grief and anger over the years that were stolen from her and sets her mind on seeking revenge.

She moves to the island where Rodrigo lives with his family in a heavily-guarded mansion due to rampant kidnappings for ransom of the wealthy Chinese Filipinos. There, she blends in with the locals striking friendships with certain characters to gain information on his daily routine as she bides her time for her chance to kill him. At night, she stalks his house disguised as a man and befriends the neighborhood balut vendor (Noni Buencamino). “Do you believe in God?” he asks her. The story raises questions about faith, justice and finding peace in the midst of turmoil.

Horacia crosses paths with several characters through random acts of kindness in which she touches their lives. She becomes a maternal figure to a mentally challenged homeless girl, Mameng (Jean Judith Javier) and an epileptic gay street walker, Hollanda (John Lloyd Cruz). “How many steps are there to get to heaven?” a child asks in one of the stories Horacia writes. Will Horacia only find peace through murder at the cost of her eternal soul? There is a certain irony in how events unfold for her as a very compassionate yet conflicted character. Perhaps in saving others such as the mysterious and troubled Hollanda, she unknowingly sets the course for her own salvation in the film’s deadly climax.

Diaz at 73rd Venice International Film Festival

It would have been nice to see some close up shots of the actors during the emotionally charged moments as there are no close up shots of anyone’s face in this film. Some emotional impact was lost because the audience could not see the actors’ facial expressions. For the most part, their faces were hidden in the shadows of the night scenes, too far for the viewers to see in the consistent use of static wide shots from one camera’s point of view or they were simply shot from behind from a distance as in the scene where Horacia was crying at her husband’s grave.

Unlike most movies where the point of view constantly intercuts between several camera angles, the scenes here are shot from one camera’s long uncut static point of view. There is no room for error to correct dialogue blunders and a lot of the storytelling and acting had to be conveyed through body language and framed silhouettes in the stark light and shadows, so kudos to the cast for delivering a great performance especially Charo Santos who had to deliver long lines of poetic narrative dialogue.

Mainstream audiences are not used to sitting in a theatre for four hours straight without an intermission and perhaps the experience could have been heightened with the addition of a musical score to enhance its emotional impact. Overall, there is something profound about the philosophical questions raised in this movie. I asked Charo Santos why she chose this for her comeback and she said “I was drawn to the spiritual journey of the character. It’s about transcending one’s past and baggage of hurt and pain and becoming better at being human. It resonated with me and it would resonate with all the viewers.”