After the screening, we had a talk with actors Ricky Davao and Joel Saracho and we’re all raving about the great vision of O’Hara as a filmmaker. Some scenes are staged theatrically, like the scene inside the Majayjay Church where the townswomen swarmed on Nora Aunor as Rosario to shame her and cut her long tresses for being the wife of a Japanese official, Christopher de Leon as Masugi. We also marvelled at the fine musical score by Minda Azarcon and the singing of Gamaliel Viray who served as an effective one-man Greek chorus to help forward the narrative.
It’s in this movie that Ate Guy was first recognized as a superior actress and she really did so well, considering she was up against Hilda Koronel in “Insiang” that year. But it’s too bad that her best scene was not saved. This is the scene where Christopher, who earlier raped her and impregnated her, tells her: “Mahal kita”. And she cries: “Sinungaling!” This scene ends with her running after Christopher into the street as she keeps on shouting “Sinungaling”, until she crumples on her knees in the middle of the road. The scene shown in the movie house was only to the part where she rushes out of their house. The kneeling and screaming was all missing. And it’s where she shone the most. Oh well, we guess you can’t have everything.
The movie also shows a very young Bembol Roco as Ate Guy’s first boyfriend. He looks better on screen than any of his sons now. It also showed a very young Soxie Topacio as a guerilla fighter and a very slim Joel Lamangan in the church scene as one of the townsmen who censure Ate Guy. They’re then both part of the PETA Kalinangan Ensemble who seems to have since disappeared from local showbiz.
