Himala

Himala (1982)

When plain orphan Elsa begins having visions of the Virgin Mary, the rest of the residents of her isolated village find themselves questioning their own beliefs and values. Soon, Elsa is healing people with a variety of ailments. As word of this phenomenon spreads, tourists, pilgrims, patients and a documentary filmmaker all arrive on a quest to partake in the miracle.

Date of release
1982-12-25
TMDB
8.0 / 10 (22)
Runtime
2h 4m
Genres
Drama
Director
Ishmael Bernal

Casting

Interesting facts

Himala ('Miracle') is a 1982 Philippine religious drama film directed by Ishmael Bernal and produced by the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines. It stars Nora Aunor as a young woman living in the province who claims to have seen a Marian apparition. The film story and script written by Ricky Lee was inspired by a series of alleged Marian apparitions experienced by schoolgirls from 1966 to 1972 on Cabra Island in Lubang, Occidental Mindoro.

Production

Ricky Lee began to write the script for Himala in 1976 under director, Mike de Leon. Ricky Lee (although requested to be uncredited), Gil Quito and Doy del Mundo together co-written Itim. Quito told Lee, about a female faith healer he and a friend visited in Malolos, Bulacan. The faith healer was cured of cancer by another faith healer, leading her to be a faith healer herself.

With the help of Bibsy Carballo, Lee approached several producers to promote the script but was rejected several times. He entered the script to a contest by the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines where it became one of the selected scripts for production. Lee was given a month to come up with the final draft and was given ₱40,000. Several aspects of the script were revised. One of the unchanged parts is the casting of Nora Aunor as Elsa.

Lee came up with different endings for the script of Himala. In one version, Elsa did not die; the townsfolk gradually stopped flocking to her and she reverted to being an ordinary person. Many years later, Orly chances upon Elsa drawing water from an old well, having fallen into obscurity along with her "miracle." In another ending, Elsa was resurrected like Jesus Christ.

Shooting began on July 13, 1982, with the arrival of the art department in Paoay, Ilocos Norte led by production designer, Raquel Villavicencio. The production team needed a location for the main setting of the film: a barren and arid land where plants hardly grow and where the soil cracks, suggesting that a slight rain would be considered a miracle by inhabitants.

Barangay Calayab in Laoag was used to depict the village of Cupang, with ten carpenters working 24/7 on the set. Around 3,000 extras were employed for the film. Director Ishmael Bernal also asked people actually inflicted by various conditions and diseases to portray the infirm within the film.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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