Mario O’Hara

  • Mario O’Hara – Tatlong taong walang Diyos AKA Three Godless Years (1976)

    1971-1980DramaMario O'HaraPhilippines

    Set during the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines between 1942 and 1944. Rosario (Nora Aunor), a young schoolteacher, is engaged to be married to Crispin (Bembol Roco). Crispin leaves Rosario to fight the Japanese as a guerilla, and in his absence a Japanese-Filipino officer named Masugi (Christopher de Leon) rapes her. Masugi later returns to Rosario apologizing for his act, bearing gifts of canned food and rice which Rosario at first refuses. Matters are complicated when Rosario’s father Mang Andoy (Mario Escudero) is arrested by the Japanese and Rosario reveals to Masugi that she is pregnant. Rosario must make a choice: accept Masugi’s proposal to make her his wife (saving her father and ensuring a safe and stable life for her child), or reject him and with him the baby they have conceived together.Read More »

  • Mario O’Hara – Babae sa Breakwater AKA Woman of Breakwater (2003)

    Mario O'Hara2001-2010DramaPhilippines
    Babae sa Breakwater (2003)
    Babae sa Breakwater (2003)

    In a poor village by the Manila Bay breakwater, brothers Buboy and Basilio come to the city to escape from the violence at home. They meet a prostitute named Pakita and become close with her when Basilio treats her wounds. All they want is to lead normal lives, but the town’s leader Dave has knavish interruptions that await them.Read More »

  • Mario O’Hara – Bakit Bughaw ang Langit? AKA Why is the Sky Blue? (1981)

    1981-1990DramaMario O'HaraPhilippines

    Quote:
    The situation is ordinary enough: a woman (Nora Aunor) falls in love with a man (Dennis Roldan). To say that she “loves” him, however, is an oversimplication, because he is a retardate. What she feels is a mixture of pity, sympathy, maternal love, and -of course sexual love for him. On the other hand, though a mere child as far as his brain is concerned, he is physically grown-up, as portrayed in a clever drunken scene where he mimics raping the mistress of a neighbor. There’s no doubt about it: Mario O’Hara is a major director. In Bakit Bughaw ang Langit?, he tackles the same basic situation Lino Brocka deals with in Bona. In the comparison Brocka suffers. Where Bona fails, Bakit Bughaw ang Langit? succeeds.
    – Isagani Cruz, Movie TimesRead More »

  • Mario O’Hara – Bulaklak sa City Jail AKA Flowers of the City Jail (1984)

    Mario O'Hara1981-1990DramaPhilippines

    Quote:
    Bulaklak sa City Jail–1984 Metro Manila Film Festival’s grand slam winner–is a tale of female empowerment in a patriarchal society, an exercise in observation of its female characters struggling to survive in the cruel society and a revelation of the many injustices, gendered or not, that Filipinos encounter in their lifetime.Read More »

  • Mario O’Hara – Pangarap ng puso AKA Demons (Censored version) (2000)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaMario O'HaraPhilippines

    Tony Rayns, Time Out Film Guide wrote:
    One-time Lino Brocka protégé O’Hara is not shy of traditional melodrama, still the lifeblood of most Filipino cinema, but Demons fits no established genre template. Part social history, part ghost horror story, part romance, part quasi-Marxist parable, it has no obvious antecedent except parts of Night of the Hunter. Set on Negros Island, the action spans nearly 20 years in the lives of Nena (De Leon), daughter of a fish-farmer, and Jose (Alano), the son of casual labourers. As they move through puberty and try to bridge the class gap, the island is riven by terrorist actions and military reprisals (echoing assassinations and political turmoil in faraway Manila), giving new meaning to the local mythology of jungle demons. O’Hara balances the narrative between drama and elegy, between occasionally shocking images and the poetry of Amado Hernandez and Florentino Collantes. Often wonderful.Read More »

  • Mario O’Hara – Tatlong taong walang Diyos aka Three Godless Years (1976)

    1971-1980ArthouseMario O'HaraPhilippines

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    Quote:
    What makes Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (Three Years without God), about the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines during World War II, such a great film? O’Hara’s style is thrillingly simple: each scene begins and ends like any other scene in a well-shaped drama. But there’s a quiet undercurrent that builds, sequence upon sequence, with the smoothness and power of a rising tsunami, until it pulls your feet out from under you, breaking high over your head, overwhelming you.Read More »

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