Artwork by Midnight Marauder
Bona (Nora Aunor), a middle-class girl from the Philippines, is obsessed with Gardo (Philip Salvador), a bit actor in low-budget films. When she decides to drop out of school school to follow the object of her infatuation, her furious father casts her out and Bona moves in with the man in the Manila slums. At first delighted to play house, the young woman soon finds herself not the wife, but the maid — at the mercy of Gardo’s every whim and desire, yet intent on enduring his unending parade of conquests in the hopes of finally being seen.
Produced by its iconic superstar Nora Aunor as a subversion of her own fame and brought to life by Brocka’s trademark blend of melodrama and social realism, Bona is a masterpiece of Filipino cinema, unfolding as a troubling character study at the intersection of fandom, sexuality and martyrdom in a country where fanaticism (both political, pop cultural and religious) remain driving societal forces. After premiering at the 1981 Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes and long thought lost thereafter, Bona makes its triumphant return with a new 4K restoration.
"A well-known opponent of the dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, Brocka had his own agenda. A film about a star-struck naïf in thrall to a tawdry strongman had another meaning for those who chose to see it." - J. Hoberman, New York Times
"Grabs and shakes with both hands patriarchal power high and low and the (im)moral order that goes with it" - Richard Brody