Synopsis
AKO SI NINOY
(A MUSICAL ON THE
LIFE AND ETERNAL TIMES OF BENIGNO AQUINO, JR.)
Written and directed by Vince Tañada
Forget subdued. Ako
si Ninoy is a film spectacle that traces the lives of 11 individuals in contemporary Philippines,
and how they relate to the public persona and private character of the late
modern-day hero, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr., which resonate in our national
life.
An overseas Filipino worker (OFW), a housewife, a
teacher, a journalist, a labor leader, an activist, a doctor, a student, a teen
star, a war veteran and a child hero: Their parallel lives, single and
collective, and told in episodic style, are reflected on the screen, as they
weave a tapestry of entwining stories that bear the stuff of heroism and what
eventually makes a hero in everyone, just like Ninoy, the guiding thread of the
film.
But heroes need not be dead.
Freely inspired by
Mike de Leon’s Bayaning 3rd
World (1999), this film biography is adapted from Vince Tañada’s
multi-awarded play of the same title, which suggests the Ninoy Aquino in every
Filipino. A breakthrough in Philippine theater, the same play hit the boards,
successfully touring the country with almost 500 performances in 2009 and 2010,
to coincide with the campaign and election of Benigno “Noynoy” Simeon Aquino
III for the presidency in May 2010.
The biography’s
narrative is character-driven, redolent of current issues and historical
reflections, and the plot, such as it is, simply drifts in sequencing the
formation of the whole film structure.
In the end, our
individual take on Ninoy’s heroism defines our own living heroism, as we
struggle, survive and prevail.
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