Bona - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Bona (Philippines superstar Nora Aunor, who also produced) is a high school girl infatuated with bit player, quasi-actor Gardo (Phillip Salvador). Okay, maybe she’s a little obsessed. Much to the disapproval of her family, she follows him everywhere. She watches him from afar as he shoots scenes for his movies. She watches him play basketball games. At home, she barely lifts a finger, but when it comes to Gardo, Bona will wait on him, hand and foot, like an obedient servant. While they’re walking together late at night, Gardo is attacked, and she helps to bring him home to recover from the beating. Once she’s there, she makes the decision that she’s never leaving. Even if their relationship isn’t romantic or sexual, she’s going to stay put and take care of him. Maybe, she figures, he’ll fall in love with her. He may bring home different women every other night, but she’s the one constant in his life.

Like all obsessions, the feelings Bona has for Gardo transcend all logic. He treats her like garbage, barely even registering her as a human being. He couldn’t care less whether she stays or goes—when her father comes barging in one day, beating the hell out of her, demanding she return home, he’s mostly upset that his sleep has been interrupted. Gardo isn’t even rich, to supply his stay-at-home maid with a lavish lifestyle. In fact, he’s about as far from rich as you can get, living in a slum with people stacked on top of each other in little huts where doors can be torn out of frames with relative ease.

The scenes in the slum could have been a depressing slog to show Bona’s descent into madness in pursuing Gardo with a feverish, unwavering devotion. Instead, there’s a sort of comforting charm to them. These people take care of each other. They make food for each other. They look after each other. They drink until the late hours of the evening, drunkenly singing songs in English. Bona stays, despite everything, because she can’t imagine a life without Gardo, but she finds a family in the community of her neighbors.

Bona is a terrific human story. It’s about toxic love, but a very specific type of toxic love that happens to people when they’re young, when you fall in love with the wrong damn person. While Bona could have been a depressing story about the abuse this poor girl suffers from her family and from Gardo, it’s instead a story about how she makes her mistakes, accepts them, and how they shape her. I don’t think I’d go so far as to say she “learns” from these mistakes. I think Bona, as a character, is as stubborn as a mule, but it’s fascinating to see how she changes, but still stays true to herself.

This is one of those movies that ends on a semi-ambiguous note, and you, the viewer, must decide what happens next. It’s an image of shocking violence that is also laugh-out-loud funny. How many films could have pulled this off? Director Lino Brocka and producer/star Nora Aunor have crafted a story in a world that feels real. In a strange way, it almost feels like the early works of Scorsese, an authentic, lived-in existence that invites an audience to stay for a while, to absorb the story. To see the sights. To smell the smells. Once considered a lost film, this release allows audiences to see Bona again, meticulously restored and presented. Movies like Bona open themselves up to a million different interpretations, and they remind us of the power of filmmaking. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Bona comes to 4K UHD/Blu-ray in a two-disc release that contains the film (plus supplemental features) on both discs. The movie and supplements are housed in a standard case, which also contains a booklet featuring writing from José B. Capino and screenshots from the film.

The film begins with text detailing the work that went into restoring Bona in 4K, an exhaustive, cooperative effort between Carlotta Films, Kani Releasing and Cité de Mémoire. The result is a spectacular-looking picture, restored from the original camera negative and graded in Dolby Vision HDR. For this review, I rewatched certain sequences on both versions of the film, as it includes both 4K/HDR and HD/SDR versions. With certain releases, there’s not a tremendous difference between versions, but with Bona, the 4K version is noticeably better. Not that its HD/SDR counterpart is any slouch! Both versions look attractive, sharply detailed, and awash in a fine layer of organic film grain. The HDR presentation allows brighter details to pop in nighttime sequences, and the color realization is significantly more varied and nuanced. The HD/SDR version on Blu-ray looks great. The 4K/HDR version is breathtaking.

The sole audio option, a mono mix encoded in DTS-HD MA, isn’t bad. It’s nothing extraordinary, but it does the job. The dialogue can sound a bit muddy at times, or a bit tinny, and sometimes the obvious ADR has a weird, artificial echo to it, but I generally grade a movie, or its technical specs, on a curve. I’m not going to grade a low-budget, Philippines-based production from 1980 on the same curve as a $100m blockbuster made this year. Still, for the technical issues listed, symptoms from its original recording and production, it does a fine job at balancing dialogue, ambient effects, and a percussive musical score all through a single audio channel. It’s a busy mix that feels lively and engaging, even if it’s a little rough around the edges.

Both discs come equipped with the same supplemental features, including new interviews with cast and crew members, plus a brand-new trailer for this restoration.

• Interview (HD 11:45) - Assistant director Jeric Soriano
• Interview (HD 22:24) - Actor Nanding Josef
• Q&A (HD 22:28) - Allan Brocka at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
• Bonus Short Film: Superfan (HD 22:05)
• Trailer

Bona is a difficult picture to pull off effectively, to have an audience sympathize with a main character who behaves irrationally and not get irritated with the story when it goes unexpected places because of the decisions she makes. Bona, herself, remains a sympathetic, intriguing character because of the strength of her resolve, an unrequited love for a man who seems to both take advantage of her, while sometimes forgetting she even exists. The film refuses to be depressing. Somehow, it’s a terrifically human story, with bright spots and joy. Happiness is where we find it, and what we make of it. Bona, from Vinegar Syndrome and Kani, is Highly Recommended.