Not just My Review of Brillante Ma. Mendoza's Thy Womb

If you want to `relax and see a movie,’ this film is not for you.

When viewing Thy Womb, it is best for you to leave any expectations of how or what a film should be outside the theater.

The film challenges you to drop - for at least 90 minutes - your long-held beliefs, both personal and cultural.

There are no dramatic confrontation scenes between Nora Aunor - the wife - and Lovi Poe - the "other woman"; when Bembol Roco’s character Bangas-An is shot by sea pirates, Nora Aunor – despite her thespic skills or maybe because of it – did not choose to be hysterical; the process of acquiring a new wife is business-like as negotiations between the bride and groom’s parties are simple and straightforward.

Thy Womb seemed to have Mother Nature included in its production payroll as the sun, the rain, a rainbow, a whale shark all appear or disappear on cue as if the film’s director, Brillante Ma. Mendoza, demanded them to. 

Whether these were due to sheer luck or divine intervention matters little in the end as Mendoza makes use of Tawi-Tawi’s picture-perfect nature shots to convey the film’s unsentimental approach to the ordinariness of extraordinary occurrences.

In one fell swoop, Mendoza weaves the personal (one’s notion of joy, sadness,  love) with the cultural (how one’s actions, choices, thoughts are dictated by the society one is in) and the national (Tawi-Tawi’s socio-political setting).  His sweeping execution is intensely subtle as emotions are felt without them needing to be coaxed out and particulars are known without them being preached.

If you are open to having your view of Mindanao challenged; if you are up to the idea of watching a movie that puts you in the discomfort zone; if you are willing to question your own judgments and deep-rooted principles, this film is a must-see.

Thy Womb touches you in places you don’t want to be touched but must, and the sensation - not just the memory - lingers on long after you’ve left the theater.

For the full review go to PEP.PH

Weeks after watching the movie, I read about how the poem "To a Mouse" got to be written by Scottish poet Robert Burns,

"The Scottish poet Robert Burns was plowing his fields one day and accidentally destroyed the home of a field mouse. He immediately felt regret for what happened but then realized that unlike people, that mouse would promptly forget the trauma and set about rebuilding his home. He also realized that unlike this tiny creature, he would relive day after day perhaps for years the trauma of having his own house destroyed, each time, experiencing that same initial pain and shock. This even prompted him to write his poem "Ode to a Mouse" to point out the prolonged suffering most of us endure long after a personal tragedy."  

and remembered Thy Womb. 

In the movie, Nora Aunor is resolute, firm but gentle and open. She is constantly weaving by hand a colorful "banig" while looking up to the heavens at night seemingly hoping and at the same time surrendering her fate to the universe. 

Her character is barren, old and delivers babies from other women's wombs. She accepts her inability to have a child of her own as a matter of fact.

But this does not stop her from creating lives or weaving the fate of other people's lives even at her expense.

When her husband played by Bembol Roco is shot by sea pirates, both of them did not just move on with their lives, they literally did not stop to react. They simply responded to the situation at the moment it happened as if it was the most normal thing in the world. They picked themselves up, tended to their wounds and proceeded with the affairs of the day, the week, the month. Nora Aunor specifically helped heal Roco's wounds, after which, she leaves him be to recuperate. 

She did not stop there though as she furthers help Roco with his quest to find a suitable woman to bear him a child by scouting for references and connections. 

Is she creating her own suffering or simply weaving life's circumstances to suit her and her husband's requirements and is finding joy in it?

Did she compensate for her impotency by arranging her husband's marriage to a fertile woman 

or 

was she expressing her own power by creating conditions that will allow other people to similarly express theirs? 

According to the film's director, Tawi-Tawi weavers have no planned design when they create these colorful "banig."  They go with whatever the weave, the moment, the color takes them. Whatever is laid or overlaid happens and simply just IS. There is no attachment to the result. There is no need to exert control. They allow the weave to cross or intercross naturally. They weave with calmness. They finish with calmness. The process is neither personal and impersonal.  It is just what the moment calls for and they work with it. 

Nora Aunor's character IS Thy Womb. 

She creates, she weaves and she releases and lets her creation go. 

Despite being literally barren, she is the ultimate creator. 

If you're religious and Catholic, you could parallel Nora Aunor's character - Shaleha - to Jesus Christ or the Christ Consciousness -- aka as LOVE: the highest level of consciousness. (If the @CBCP endorses this movie to be watched by its flock - despite the film's characters' worship of Allah, and the absence of pale white male vampires and/or half-naked werewolf dudes - Nora Aunor's Elsa would be dead wrong in its claim that "Walang Himala!"

If you're a New Age Hispster, you could see Shaleha as the ultimate feminine energy - the one that creates and nurtures unconditionally,  that is why she's always looking at the moon you see.

If you're into feminism, you could rally against the patriarchy prevalent in the society she's moving in as well as scoff at Shaleha's efforts and her dysfunctional codependent personality.

If you're into movies like A Secret Affair, No Other Woman, The Mistress, you might think Shaleha's stupid for giving her man away on a silver platter to a girl less than half her age.

If you're still here reading this --  guess what? -- at whatever level of perception you're watching the movie, you might be correct.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5.

Because I heard, and agree, that the movie could just as well be an MMK episode entitled PUSOD.