Humans are social animals by nature and it's hardwired into our culture to seek people who we think can lead us. Humans used the concept of gods in order to bring sense to the world and our lives in general, and that idolatry and worship eventually extended to people, upon whose shoulders we confer some sort of authority. Over the centuries it has led us to make some horrible decisions whenever we pick the wrong ones. In the meantime, in the quest for gaining their own power, some people began to manufacture leaders for their own ends, even making an industry out of it. It makes a weird sort of logic: in a world where we commodify people, we also commodify the idea of leadership, where we manufacture idols of our own. Art and media over the ages - paintings, sculptures, and now films - have been created as a means of creating the manufactured image of such idols. If you've read some of the posts on my blog Present Confusion (or if this is the future and you've already read one of my books) I've written about this very phenomenon - about how some screen idols exploit the parasocial relationships we have with them to gain personal and political power and influence.
One of the most powerful weapons of the manufactured idol is the power of nostalgia, and in the beginning of Tim Rone Villanueva's Child No. 82, the faux trailer at the beginning of the movie is a clear callback to films like Fernando Poe Jr's Ang Panday (1980.) The character of Maximo "Boy Kana" Maniego, here played by Vhong Navarro, is a clear homage to FPJ, though his character also shares elements from other action stars turned politicians like former president Joseph Estrada.
The elder Maximo is the subject of idolatry of his son Max (JM Ibarra), apparently one of many, who lives a humble life assisting his grandmother and mother with selling Inabel, a textile native to the Ilocos region. When the elder Maximo suddenly passes away, Max sets off to his wake in order to stake claim to his share of the inheritance and to say goodbye to the father that he never knew.
Max is not a perfect person, and throughout the film we see that he shares many similarities with his deceased father, to the point where it's clear he could be a successor to his reign. At the same time, Villanueva shows us the miniature ecosystem formed around an idol: fan clubs, family both included and estranged, staff, goons and hangers-on all wanting a piece of whatever Maximo had. Child No. 82 shares themes with other recent films like Antoinette Jadaone's Fan Girl (2020), which subsequently shares roots with the quintessential film about this form of idolatry, Lino Brocka's Bona (1980). But while Fan Girl focuses on the way fanaticism and blind worship leads to abuse, Child No. 82 dives deep into the process of creating an idol, and in turn, the process of creating fandoms. While Max waits for an opportunity to get close to his father, there are subtle and not-so-subtle signs that his dad was not a nice person, nor did he care about anyone else but himself.
There are a lot of meaningful choices throughout the film that add a metatextual layer to the film's themes: the film's protagonist is set in Ilocos, home to a political "idol" that brought the country to ruin, with a son following in his footsteps; Vhong Navarro in his heyday was a popular public figure who had his own share of controversies that negatively impacted his career for a long time (though some fans still stayed with him regardless), and the young JM Ibarra is the very popular finalist of a recent season of Pinoy Big Brother, a rookie celebrity already with a sizeable fanbase of his own.
While macho posturing and negative masculine energies contribute to Max's troubles, his fate as the second coming of his father is not sealed, and in Child No. 82 it is counteracted by the love and care his mother and grandmother give him. Rochelle Pangilinan's role is central to this; as Max's mother, she is conflicted about what happened in the past, and her desire to keep Max away from his father's influence fuels her decisions. While the ensemble cast is capable and well-rounded (including a hilarious turn from Irma Adlawan as Boy Kana's number one fan,) it's Pangilinan's performance that shines above the rest. On the other hand, the film also shows how this nurturing energy can be used by kingmakers to create idols of their own, embodied by Boy Kana's widow (Dexter Doria).
All this is wrapped in a package that is supremely entertaining and geared towards larger audiences outside of Cinemalaya. At times I even mused that this film would have felt right at home at something like the MMFF. It's filled with jokes and references that fans of old school Filipino fantasy works like Darna and Panday will love, and it cleverly integrates pixel art animated sequences near the end (perhaps as a way of dealing with budget constraints, but those sequences can cost a lot too).
As a people, our eternal search for a savior will always be part of our national history. It's baked into our popular culture at this point. The mid credits sequence of the film, obviously cribbed from the MCU, is used to show the cyclical nature of people like Boy Kana, old gods taking new forms.
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