39 years later, Hilda Koronel and Christopher de Leon on ‘Kung Mangarap
Ka’t Magising’–and love
By: Cathy Babao
@inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer
05:23 AM February 14th, 2016
I was all of 13 years old when “Kung
Mangarap Ka’t Magising (KMKM)” was first shown on Dec. 24, 1977 as part of the
Metro Manila Film Festival.
A die-hard Christopher-Hilda fan, I
begged my parents to let me see the movie but they wouldn’t. The material, they
said, was “too mature” for my 13-year-old mind.
My best friend took pity on me (she
was a huge fan of the tandem, too) so she ended up recording the entire film on
cassette and passed on the precious, and by today’s law, “pirated” commodity to
me the first day we returned to school after the Christmas break.
That night I put on my earphones and
played the cassette over and over, my 13-year-old heart giddy and my mind
imagining the scenes playing out in my head.
Under the mango tree
Thirty-nine years later, the film
restoration team of ABS-CBN and Central Digital Lab brings back to the screen
the immortal love story of Joey and Ana, this time digitally restored and
remastered. Once more, with the sounds and colors so vivid and vibrant, in the
darkness of Power Plant Cinema, I found my 51-year-old heart giddy once more.
The film, which was given an R-13
rating by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (so my
parents were right after all!), was produced by LVN studios back in 1977, in
time for the centennial celebration of Doña Sisang, founder of LVN.
Rey Santayana, who wrote the
screenplay with Mike de Leon, says the goal was to bring together all the
elements that made LVN movies memorable.
“The singing under the mango tree
concept, young love, fun, laughter… that’s why there was a lot of original
songs and music in ‘KMKM.’”
And true enough, 39 years later, it’s
still the cinematography (Baguio at its most beautiful!), music and the
chemistry of its lead actors that set the movie apart from most romantic
Tagalog movies I’ve seen.
Beautiful face
In an online conversation with Hilda
Koronel and a phone interview with Christopher “Boyet” de Leon a few days ago,
both reminisced about the movie like it was shot only yesterday.
“I was at the height of my career,
and being accepted as an actress and not just a beautiful face was really
important to me. ‘KMKM,’ though, was just not a great film, but really, a
visual feast because of our director. It was stunning to watch the play of
colors, the lighting, listening to the music… and we shot in what was
considered the most beautiful and romantic spot back then— Baguio and Sagada,”
Hilda begins.
Santayana validates this—“Baguio was
the place everyone went to at that time. It was the perfect setting for a love
story.”
In limbo
Christopher recalls that he and his
friends were, quite like Joey in the film, at a stage in their lives when their
romantic lives were in limbo.
“Bobot [Edgar Mortiz], Johnny, Jay
and I were a group and we called ourselves the Lonely Hearts Club because at
that time, we had all been recently separated from our respective partners.”
He has only fond memories of Hilda’s
beauty and like a schoolboy, recalls how Hilda was “in super top form. I think
that was the height of her beauty, that film really showcased it. She was
really all woman na in that movie.”
Boy-next-door roles were coming one
after another for Christopher, but “KMKM” was special because it was a chance
to work again with Hilda and be directed, for the first time, by Mike de Leon.
“I had to learn how to play the piano
for the role. It was a condition given to me. My favorite scene in the film is
when I sing ‘Joey’s Theme’ to Hilda up on the hill. It was also one of the most
difficult and nerve-racking, because Mike shot it all in one go!”
Hilda says Ana’s role was one she’d
loved from the start.
“Ana is a great role… she’s got a lot
happening to her, sort of like my life at that time. I could feel her anguish,
having being married so young myself. It was the feeling of being trapped and
wanting to get out… of being unhappy and yet you don’t want to rock the boat
and hurt other people around you. Ana always thought about other people, and
never herself. But, of course, Ana resolves that at the end and so did Boyet’s
character, Joey.”
Christopher and Hilda were 22 and 21,
respectively, when “KMKM” was shot. Both had married very young, and at that
time, brilliant in their craft but also very restless.
“I had never been to Sagada and we
were so young. We would go to the disco and dance until the wee hours and then
our call time would be 6 a.m. We would all come on time.
“I would be on the set ready, with my
rollers wound on my hair, an hour’s sleep, but lines all memorized. Mike wasn’t
too happy with it but we knew our lines and weren’t sleepy or anything.
“One night, all the boys were
sneaking out and I saw them and asked where they were going. I was so naïve, so
I told them that I’d tell if they didn’t take me along. Childish but it worked…
with a solemn promise not to tell. So they took me along… and I’ll just say, we
had quite an adventure!”
Christopher recalls how mesmerized he
was with the experience of working in Baguio and Sagada.
“Going up to Sagada was magical. It
was still secluded back in 1977. Baguio was so beautiful and we stayed there
for two months until we completed the film.
“Hilda is the classic actress, she
has an amazing photographic memory! One look at the script and she gets it!
She’ll sit in one corner, read her script, then after a while, she’ll say,
‘Okay, I’m ready.’ Sobrang nakaka pressure and she would tease me about it,
‘Script lang iyan!’”
Chemistry
The chemistry between Christopher and
Hilda has always been magical, captured on screen as something memorable and
beautiful.
How does one explain such chemistry?
“It’s so easy to fall in love with
Hilda. You just look at her and boom! She’s also a really good actress, one of
the best we’ve had hands-down,” Christopher says.
“Boyet and I, we’ve always had good
chemistry. It’s hard to explain this because it just is. You have it with a
few, and you don’t with a lot. Physically, it’s a good match. Not to be
shallow, because you know that’s not important to me, but the two of us, on the
big screen, it really works. I guess because we were also both Brocka-trained.
“We can anticipate each other —I know
how he works and I think he knows how I do, too. Working with Boyet is like
coming home to someone you know and someone who knows you really well.”
Second chances
I asked them what they thought of the
possibility of a sequel and how that story might play out if it were to be made
into a movie today.
“That’s hard,” Hilda says. “It could
be two different stories. So much has happened to the both of them, and maybe
they find one another through their children. Maybe they’ll find each other on
social media! (Hilda recently joined Twitter. If you like to follow her, it’s
@HKoronel)
“Then again, I don’t know, we might
be too old for another love story,” she laughs.
Ever the romantic, Christopher sees
an older Joey and Ana finding each other again in a foreign country.
“Maybe somewhere in Europe. This time
they are finally both free. Whether they end up together, well, let’s leave
that to the scriptwriter.”
Art imitates life, and there are
always possibilities. Christopher and
Hilda are older and wiser now in the ways of love.
Christopher says, “If I knew then
what I now know about love I would be more careful, cautious and prudent about
making decisions that would affect my life long-term.”
“Me, I would be more careful and not
jump into a situation to get away from another one. I would definitely take
care of myself more, love myself more,” Hilda says.
It is wisdom that the older
characters of Joey and Anna would have said themselves.
Perhaps, like many of us children of
the ’70s and ’80s hope for, there’s a second chance waiting for these two
characters.
“KMKM” runs this Valentine weekend at
Power Plant Cinema, tonight at 7 p.m., and on February 16, 7:45 and 9:35 p.m.
E-mail the columnist at stories
bykate@gmail.com Follow her on Twitter @cathybabao
She is the former Filipina actress now based in Los Angeles California United States real name is Susan Reid under her screen name as Hilda Koronel.
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