Magnifico: A film for the Catholic Church to endorse

I don’t do public relations work even if it is a decent and legitimate profession. I guess I just don’t have the talent to sell or help sell anything. However, I would like to help promote – gratis on the part of the producer – this film called Magnifico, which will have a premiere showing tonight at 7:30 in one of the cinemas of SM Megamall. (Regular exhibition begins on Wednesday, Feb. 12).

I already came out with a glowing review of this movie for this paper the other week, but I still want to endorse this film some more because it is not every day, every week, every month or even every year that we get to see a Tagalog picture like Magnifico and I want to see it succeed.

Although I don’t want to sound like a wet blanket, I’m a bit worried about the box-office results of this movie because it has neither sex nor violence – two main reasons why people come in droves to movie theaters.

Now, that is the trouble with us local moviegoers. We complain about sex and violence in the movies and insist that all Tagalog pictures are trash and worthless. But then, when you show exceptional local movies in cinemas, more often than not, these play to empty theaters.

In the past 20 years, we’ve seen this happen to Batch ’81, Sister Stella L., Manila by Night (primarily because it was mutilated by the censors), Kapit sa Patalim and, more recently, Sana Pag-ibig Na (the last important lead role of Nida Blanca) and Bayaning Third World. All these films were outstanding and were critically acclaimed here and abroad. Unfortunately, these movies bombed at the box-office. Jeffrey Jeturian even injected sex in his award-winning Tuhog, but the film (really outstanding) still didn’t make money maybe because it is non-linear and requires some serious thinking on the part of the viewers.

It was a good thing that other finely-crafted films like Mano Po, Tanging Yaman and Jose Rizal did very well at the box-office. But then, these were all part of the Metro Manila Film Festival and did not have to compete against foreign movies.

I’m just hoping that Magnifico would go the way of American Adobo last year. American Adobo didn’t have sex, but – surprise, surprise! – a lot of people saw it. Obviously, word got around about how interesting the movie was and so the public (mostly the A-B crowd) got curious and flocked to the cinemas to watch it. Here’s hoping the same thing would happen to Magnifico.

For the moralists and the conservative sector, here at last is the movie you’ve been asking for – a film bursting at the seams with moral values. But the wonderful thing about Magnifico is that it is not preachy and would not turn off the viewers because the fine lessons in life that are taught here are all beautifully incorporated into the story – without the whole thing looking like a Sunday Catechism class.

I also hope that the Catholic Church would endorse this film to the various parishes and even churches of other denominations to their respective communities because it promotes Christian values.

If we support this film and it makes money at the box-office, then we’d be sending a clear message to local movie producers that they need not resort to sex and violence to come up with a commercially viable film product.

But if – heaven forbid-this film bombs and the producer, Madame Violet Sevilla, fails to recover her more than P20-M investment, then she may just be tempted to come up with some trashy sex film the next time around (although being deeply religious, I doubt if she would). Or she may just drop out of the movie scene – which will be a pity because the cast and crew of Magnifico swear by her professionalism and integrity as a producer. We don’t have that many people like her in this fast-dying industry so we don’t want to lose her. In fact, even Regal Films matriarch Lily Monteverde and industry leader Marichu Maceda are helping out – also gratis – to ensure the success of Magnifico because they both believe that this is the type of film project that would help the ailing movie business back on its feet.

Once more, I would like to stress that I am not a hired PRO for this film and neither do I have any financial investment in it (as if I can afford it). But I still want to make this appeal for everyone to please watch it because it is one of those rare gems that are hard to come by in local movies. Although it is not a perfect film, Magnifico will surely tug at your heart, yes, magnificently.