Isabel Maria C.

Fernando August 14, 2012

English 10 THW6

Wonderfully Eerie and Brilliantly Gruesome
In my 16 years of existence, I have only seen 2 Filipino-made films in the
cinema. The first was T2, a horror-suspense movie involving engkantos which I
saw roughly 2 or 3 years ago. As a whole, it was a disappointing film, although to
be fair, the only reason I watched was because Friday the 13
th
was an R-18 film,
and I didnt look old enough to sneak in. The other film I saw was The Healing,
which I watched 2 weeks ago.
When it comes to movies, Im very biased toward international films, so I
was quite surprised when I found that I actually liked watching The Healing.
Granted, the experience may have been heightened by the darkness of the
theater, the lateness of the hour and the general lack of people inside the
cinema(we were less than 20), but the movie was well done.
The first scene, together with the opening credits, shows the healer, Elsa,
at work. She lays her hands on Odong, a man who suffered from a stroke. His
daughter Seth, played by Vilma Santos, then takes him home and gives him a
mug of herbal medicine as prescribed by the healer. They head home. Behind
them, there is commotion because while calling the next patient, another has
fainted and was quickly brought inside. The day after, hes up and about; as if
the stroke was never there. Inspired by this, Seths neighbors and stepdaughter
ask to see the same healer. They arrive at Elsas home, only to be turned away
by her brother. Seth pleads for her companions, and begrudgingly, the healer
agrees to help them out. One by one they miraculously get better.
However, as soon as her friends begin to heal, Seth begins to see
strange things. Black crows appear to her in dreams and inside her bedroom.
One by one, she sees her friends in places far from where they are supposed to
be. Following one doppelganger, she discovers that when a friend sees their
own doppelganger, they go insane, brutally ending the life of the people
around them before ending their own.
Seth goes back to the Elsa for help to stop the curse, but the she had
died after she healed the people Seth brought to her. The healers brother
explained that after Seth and her father left the healer, the next patient, the one
who supposedly fainted, had already died from a heart attack. The healer
worked on him all the same, and brought him back to life without knowing. After
this, the healer became sick and didnt heal any one else until Seth asked her
to. Seths friends are paying the price for the uncalled-for resurrection. Patayan
ang dapat patay na. or kill what is supposed to be dead is the only way to end
the curse.
Seth desperately tries to find the resurrected man and discovers that he
was imprisoned for murdering a number of people. She tries to feed him
poisoned food but fails. She instead takes precautionary measures so that
Cookie, her stepdaughter, does not fall prey to the same curse. The movie ends
with Elsas brother shooting the resurrected murderer just as Seths son,
possessed by Cookies doppelganger, chokes Cookie.
The first thing I noticed when watching The Healing was the symbolism.
One of the two most dominant is the changing color motif. First scene, the
healers home: everyone, except for a child wearing red, was wearing white. I
dismissed this at first, thinking that there must have been an event in the area
since the scene was set at the province. However, in the next scene, set at
Seths house, everyone was still wearing white. The atmosphere added a certain
eeriness to the whole film. The color everyone was wearing corresponded to the
overall mood in the part of the film. They started with white, which is a color for
purity or cleanliness, appropriate for the part where everyone asked to be
healed. Next was blue, symbolizing calm, which they wore when they were
slowly getting better. They then wear red, the color of blood, meaning violence,
during the part where Seth began to see doppelgangers and where her friends
began to go on murder sprees ending in their gruesome suicides. The motif then
shifts to pink, which is used to neutralize this disorder and violence, when Seth
dismisses her these are just coincidences theory and takes the initiative to find
out why her friends act that way. The movie ends with a yellow motif, which
means clarity and awareness, when Seth is actively fighting against the curse.
The presence of these color motifs in a Filipino movie gave me hope that
Philippine cinema isnt as stupid and clich as I thought.
The second symbolism comes in the form of the crow. These birds show
themselves to Seth whenever another of her friends doppelgangers is about to
show up. This is accurate because crows are commonly used as an omen for
death, curse or misfortune. Notably, when Seth goes to the prison to attempt to
poison the resurrected man, a group of crows (called a murder) can be seen
perched on the prisons roof.
As morbid as this next comment may sound, I like how the murders were
done. I only watched the PG13 version of the film (shame) but the way the
actors carried out their killings was brilliantly gruesome. From a child (a child!)
stabbing Buddhist monks with a ceremonial sword, to a cop shooting everyone
he sees during a gay bar raid, to a beheading with a bolo, the situations and
methods are very different, and I give kudos to the writers and director as these.
Aside from the diversity of the murders, there is also diversity with the mode of
suicide. The child who stabbed the monks jumped off the temple roof and
impaled herself on a pole. A health worker doused herself in gasoline and
burned herself. The woman with the bolo hanged herself. Every time there was a
murder-suicide on screen, I was at the edge of my seat with excitement and
awe.
The Healing as a title is appropriate for the film. It alludes to Seths
friends and their demonic frenzies, which is the meat of the movie. Had the
movie been entitled The Healer, it would have been inaccurate as Elsa, the
healer, though she caused the whole fiasco accidentally, only had a minor role
in the film.
In the first part of the film, healers, through the character of Elsa, were
portrayed as trustworthy people, especially when she predicted the next patient
to have a manageable problem and called for the child in a red shirt waiting
outside, without leaving her home. This portrayal was furthered by the sudden
wellness of Seths father and friends when they went to see her. However, later in
the movie, the image of healers begin to tarnish, mainly because of the
possession of Seths friends and the destruction they brought. Though in the end,
the whole event was an accident, the movie exposes the risk of going to faith
healers. Sometimes it might be effective, and sometimes it might not. As Elsa
said when Seth asked what would happen when her father would take the
herbal medication, Mangyayari ang mangyayari or Que cera, cera.
Whatever will be, will be.
I highly recommend this movie to thrill-seekers and fans of horror,
suspense and gore. Despite being a Filipino film, this movie was able to combine
a powerhouse cast (with Vilma Santos, Kim Chiu and Pokwang among the
actors), with a gripping plot and subtle symbolism, and near-Hollywood special
effects to create a fantastic masterpiece.