The healing power of kindness

Whenever I see children selling sampaguita or doing some other odd job just to help their parents out, I can’t help but be reminded of the movie Magnifico. Released in 2003, directed by Maryo J. de Los Reyes and written by Michiko Yamamoto, the movie’s acclaim stemmed not from its special effects (which seems to be the sole selling point of just about every other local film produced today) but its excellent storytelling.

Today, Magnifico remains one of my favorite Filipino movies, one of the few I just can’t seemingly get tired of watching over and over again.

The story deals with Magnifico, and how he helps and changes the lives of the people around him. His father is jobless, and his Lola is dying. His younger sister is physically incapacitated, and his Kuya, on whom his parents have set their hopes, just lost his scholarship and could no longer continue his studies. All this is complicated by the fact that Magnifico’s family is very poor.

His neighbors are not well off themselves, as they contend with their very own demons.

While the movie is generally light, some issues it deals with vary from serious to grim, and its characters are painstakingly real. Just a few weeks ago I heard an old diabetic man on TV say that sometimes he wants to die so he’d no longer be a burden to his already struggling family. This is reminiscent of Lola Magma wishing for her death so she’d be less of a burden to her son.

The disappointment Magnifico’s Kuya feels upon losing his scholarship is understandable. All these seemingly hopeless situations and problems provide the backdrop by which Magnifico demonstrates the healing and changing power of kindness and love.

I admit I was shocked when I first saw Magnifico preparing for his Lola’s funeral with much enthusiasm, even glee. It is only later that one realizes it is bravery and positivism, not naiveté or morbidity, that compelled Magnifico to act that way. Magnifico has accepted the situations he is in and has accepted them with much kindness and compassion. He may see things differently, but not necessarily wrongly. I daresay the world would be a much better place if more people would be like Magnifico.

This is much easier said than done, especially when everyday life especially in the city is a test of endurance and patience. The pressures of everyday living force us to distrust others. We now live in a world where trusting people is the exception, rather than the norm. For a while, a friend stopped giving alms to begging streetchildren and said, “Ipangra-rugby lang nila yan” (They’ll just use the money to buy rugby).

How many times have we been tempted to just keep the lost items that we found, reasoning out that “If I’m the one who lost this, the finder would have kept it, too?”

What many of us fail to realize is even the smallest acts of kindness go a long way. How many times has a random act of kindness from a stranger eased our burden? It need not be something big. It could be a  “thank you” or a simple smile.

It may not be always well-received, but at the very least you tried. That is way much better than doing nothing. In a world where it’s too easy to get jaded and simply give up, it’s nice to have a movie like Magnifico to remind us that in this troubled, seemingly hopeless world, kindness still counts and it still could change the world.

Sans elaborate sets, Magnifico is a simple movie with a simple story, albeit a beautiful one. Excellent performances from its star-studded cast, particularly Jiro Manio, Albert Martinez, Lorna Tolentino, Tonton Gutierrez and Gloria Romero did not hurt. A few have compared Magnifico to  Hollywood’s Pay It Forward (just as Mga Munting Tinig is compared to the Chinese film Not One Less) which featured then child star Haley Joel Osment. Both involved children, who through kindness changed everything and everyone around them.

While there are parallelisms between the two, I believe their similarities are at best, limited. In Magnifico, De Los Reyes and Yamamoto have created a compelling story, or modern-day parable that is truly Filipino, one whose message resounds in the viewers’ minds long after the credits have rolled.