Lav Diaz’s Ang Babaeng Humayo marks the return of ABS-CBN chief content officer Charo Santos to acting and it is Diaz and Santos’ superb combination that led them to the ongoing 73rd Venice Film Festival.
Together with 54 other films, Ang Babaeng Humayo — the sole entry from Asia — is competing for the festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion.
It looks like they’re off to a great start.
Movie reviewer Clarence Tsui of The Hollywood Reporter raved about Santos’ “majestic” performance as the embattled Horacia Somorostro, a school teacher who was wrongly jailed for 30 years.
Tsui writes, “Santos has delivered a sturdy performance in which she brings to the fore all the unstable emotional contours of a mentally unraveling avenger.”
He adds: “Rather than being a commercial sellout, [Ang Babaeng Humayo] is a taut exercise in which every shot burns with condensed emotions and human empathy, whether in the riveting depiction of the characters’ quotidian existence throughout, or the heartbreaking shots of Manila’s gloomy cityscape which makes up the final minutes of the film.”
Santos tells ABS-CBN News, Ang Babaeng Humayo is “about love and revenge and transcendence of one’s humanity. How do you let go of your past, how do you let go of your baggage? After going through so much pain in life, how does one begin to appreciate the inherent goodness in man again?”
The film, which was shot entirely in Santos’ hometown of Calapan, Mindoro, was inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s God Sees the Truth, But Waits.
Diaz, a veteran filmmaker, has won the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival for Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis.
Ang Babaeng Humayo stars Michael de Mesa, John Lloyd Cruz, Shamaine Centenera-Buencamino, Nonie Buencamino, Marj Lorico, Mayen Estanero, Romelyn Sale, Lao Rodriguez, Jean Judith Javier, Mae Paner and Kakai Bautista. It is produced by Sine Olivia and Cinema One Originals.
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