Brillante Mendoza begins with a fabulous and stunning shot of a real birth. Mendoza tosses irony into the hands of a Filipino midwife, Shaleha (Nora Aunor) who, despite having helped hundreds of babies being born, is unable to have children. In a traditional, religious marriage like Shaleha and her husband’s, the continuity of the species is one of the conditions for true matrimonial happiness. The colors of the incredible scenery of the Philippines are so quiet as Shaleha, even when she embodies the crazy chimera of finding a woman to give a biological child to her husband, desire which seemed to have been mitigated by the adoption of his nephew. At the pace of their travels in transparent waters, we follow one by one the castings for a second marriage that ends the anguish of the midwife, much larger than her husband’s, we don’t know why. Shaleha discovers that to see this wish fulfilled, she will have to undergo further trials and ultimately she is not prepared to share love or for all the restlessness that comes with the birth of a child that is not hers. (M. M.)
