MMFF 2019: Review of MINDANAO: A Filipino Family in Focus

January 7, 2019

Saima Datupalo was a woman from Maguindanao who loved performing Muslim dances and telling Muslim stories. She had a four-year old daughter Aisa who had a tumor growing behind her right eye, and they had to travel to Davao City regularly for her chemotherapy. Meanwhile, her husband Malang was an Army sergeant-medic deployed on a series of dangerous missions against rebels, and so was frequently absent from their home. 

The most remarkable aspect that set this apart from other Brillante Mendoza family dramas was the use of colorful animated sequences of crayon drawings (by Team App) to tell the story of warrior brothers Raja and Suleiman and their grand battles with Pula and Ginto, the two vicious fire-breathing dragons which terrorized Mindanao. The editing of the animation with the live-action scenes were impressive. However, this epic story of bravery as told by Saima to entertain Aisa, while charming, never really connected clearly with the travails of the Datupalo family. 

Judy Ann Santos was consistently on point with her portrayal of Saima, and fully deserved the Best Actress accolades she had earned so far. She had big expressive eyes which can speak volumes of suppressed emotions, and this seemed to be a common feature of other central women characters in other Brillante Mendoza films, like Shaleha (played by Nora Aunor) in "Thy Womb" and Rosa (played by Jaclyn Jose) in "Ma'Rosa." 

Allen Dizon was his usual competent self as Sgt. Datupalo, and had effective emotional scenes with his wife and child, and his army buddy (played by Ketchup Eusebio). However, his screen time was actually shorter than would be expected for someone who won the Best Actor prize. 6 year-old child actress Yuna Tangog played the ailing Aisa with quiet strength. She portrayed some difficult scenes quite realistically despite her age and inexperience.

With a title like "Mindanao," one would probably expect a film with a grand story of epic proportions about the whole island. However, it turned out to be a simple story of one family who just happened to live in Mindanao, but their story could have easily been transposed to any other place in the Philippines. Director Mendoza made sure there were several touches of Muslim culture (religion, music, dance, legends, burial practices) intertwined within the telling of the story to remind us of the exotic setting. 7/10