Poster for the film's 2019 restoration
Click here to see the original movie advert
Click here to see the original movie advert
Mga Bilanggong Birhen (The Captive Virgins), released internationally as Familia Sagrada during the film's 2019 restoration, is a 1977 Philippine period drama film directed by Mario O'Hara and Romy Suzara, starring Alma Moreno, Trixia Gomez, and Armida Siguion-Reyna as the eponymous "captives". Why is that, exactly?
The year is 1920, and Americans have become the new colonizers of the country. This calls for the resurgence of the Pulajanes, freedom fighters who have not forgotten their dreams of independence, and incite aggression towards the wealthy landowners who have abused their workers when the Americans gave them power to rule and take their land. In a desperate attempt for the rich to hold onto their good name and prestige, strict traditions are upheld in the name of family unity, to preserve and improve position and power. Love and relationships become a thing of the past. The poor have also learned to sell out their own. So caught in the crossfires are the women, mainly Celina (Moreno), a young bachelorette who is arrange to be married to a man she barely knew, her mother Felipa (Siguion-Reyna), who glides through the mansion with a heavy burden on her mind due to a secret she has kept buried, and Milagros (Gomez), Celina's older sister and Felipas' oldest daughter, who has become insane when a relationship her family has deemed forbidden is forcibly ended.
The film premiered on December 24, 1977, as part of the 3rd Metro Manila Film Festival, which won Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction that year. It won Best Cinematography again at the 1978 Gawad Urian Awards.
Not to be confused with the 1960 film, Bilanggong Birhen (Imprisoned Virgin). Note the plural and singular difference.
Provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Doña Isabel's abuse expands generations, extracting filial loyalties not just from her son, but from her daughter-in-law and two granddaughters, dictating their fates regardless of their protestations. Just ask Milagros.
- Asshole Victim: Don Juan exploits the poor locals for his own benefit, raping their young daughters, kills Kapitan Pablo and his son during a siege, and shoots his own wife dead after being told she had a son with Kapitan Pablo, revealing that the baby who was kidnapped long ago was never his. In the end, the Pulajanes have him killed as punishment and revenge for his atrocities. Between the fact his daughter Celina ended up leading the Pulajanes and his mother's low opinion of him, no one, not even his family, would be mourning for him.
- Damsel in Distress: Celina, twice. First, when she is kidnapped by the Santo Kristo cult and she is rescued by David and the Pulajanes. Second, when she is taken back to the hacienda when a traitor gives away the hideout of the Pulajanes where Celina had already chosen to stay.
- Defector from Decadence: Celina joins the Pulajanes once she becomes aware of the abuses and injustices inflicted by her wealthy family, and after realizing the kindness other rich people showed her only matters if she's of use to them.
- Driven to Suicide:
- According to Felipa, this was the fate that befell Milagros' estranged love, Miguel, after he was sent away to Manila. When the news reached Milagros, it's implied this is what finally broke her.
- Milagros succumbs to the grief of being abandoned by Miguel, and hangs herself.
- Eat the Rich: This is the Pulajanes' M.O. Hacienda workers are revolting against their rich masters throughout the film, and if the ending is any indication with the lynching of Don Juan, they succeeded in overthrowing the Sagradas and resolve to continue the fight with Celina at the helm.
- Evil Matriarch: Doña Isabel rules her brood with an iron fist, and those who disobey her must face her wrath. One such Establishing Character Moment is when she pointed a shotgun towards her own son because he was absent when the hacienda was raided by rebel fighters, and she fires warning shots at him for stalling.
- Fan Disservice: The men pushing the rail car gradually becoming naked after they finished taking their turn in raping Milagros.
- Fanservice Extra: The topless women who were part of the Santo Kristo ceremony, if you consider them as such.
- Female Misogynist: Doña Isabel is the Reactionary. Although she doesn't treat her own son any better, her venom and spite is mostly directed at her daughter-in-law and granddaughters for acting any less than a Proper Lady.
- Gratuitous Spanish: Doña Isabel's tendency to sprinkle otherwise Tagalog sentences with Spanish words and phrases as an auditory symbol of her connection and adhering to the ultra-conservative Castilian traditions she grew up with.
- Gruesome Grandparent: Doña Isabel is verbally abusive to her granddaughters and, at one point, beats Celina for being found in the company of a man. She's also been the instigator for Milagros' fragile state of mind when she had her granddaughter's lover banished to the city, and chained her in the basement after having gone mad.
- Hollywood Darkness: For exterior scenes taking place at night, a blue filter is used, despite the sky looking suspiciously bright. By contrast, interior scenes are filmed in actual darkness.
- Ironic Name: Milagros is Spanish for "miracle", but out of all the characters, she has the worst luck from losing her one true love, losing her mind, and losing her life to suicide.
- Leave the Camera Running: The movie is fond of long, focused shots during intense and/or quiet scenes.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Milagros after she's forced to separate with a man she fell in-love with. In the present, she's chained in the basement, repeatedly calling out for his name, and when Celina inadvertently lets her escape, she allows five plantation workers to rape her in an abandoned train caboose and later commits suicide.
- Meaningful Name: Sagrada means "sacred" in Spanish. Doña Isabel has a firm grasp on her family's reputation because their family name is literally sacred.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: None of the actors affect a Bisaya accent of any sort, even though their characters are ostensibly native Visayans in a Visayan province. Most of the cast were born and raised in various Luzon provinces and the National Capital Region, and filming took place in Pampanga (a province in Luzon), so even if they hired locals to play bit parts, it still wouldn't help. The whole film could be a case of Translation Convention, however.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Celina becoming the new leader of the Pulajanes and Don Juan's death at their hands all happen in the interim whilst the credits roll.
- Outliving One's Offspring:
- Felipa ends up having to endure the deaths of her eldest daughter and illegitimate son respectively. First, Milagros hangs herself when her anguish over her forced separation from Miguel became too great to bear. Second, when she finds Leandro's body amongst the fallen rebel fighters after Don Juan kills him and his father, Kapitan Pablo, in battle and brings their corpses to the hacienda.
- Doña Isabel's reaction is not shown, but her son, Don Juan, is eventually tortured and killed by the Pulajanes offscreen after a Time Skip.
- Parental Marriage Veto: A variant where it's the grandparent that does this. Milagros fell in love with a man named Miguel, but unfortunately, he's said to be the son of a political opponent of the family, so Doña Isabel put the kibosh on that one. On the contrary, Felipa, her mother, had sent someone to fetch Miguel from Manila, hoping to get Milagros out of her downward spiral, but when news returned that he had apparently took his own life out of grief, her daughter completely went off the deep end.
- Rape Leads to Insanity: Four men take turns raping Milagros when she escaped the house one night, but her mental state had already deteriorated by that time. Still, she was a ticking time bomb, and it led to her eventual suicide.
- Riding into the Sunset: More of a Riding into the Sunrise. Celina and David ride on horseback into the dawn's horizon, towards a bright future, determined to continue the late Kapitan Pablo's revolution.
- Southern Gothic: The film's setting takes great inspiration from this aesthetic. It's set in a large estate at the Visayan province, run by an oppressive matriarch, women being forced to repress their desires, and there's a secret involving the missing male heir who was kidnapped in the prologue since Felipa conceived him with a rebel leader, Kapitan Pablo, not with her husband as she led him to believe all these years.
- Victorious Childhood Friend: David is a stable boy who was Celina's friend when they were both young. He and Celina — who by now is pregnant with his child, but not mistakenly — are betrothed in a simple ceremony at the mountain headquarters of the Pulajanes. When they're separated for a second time, David overpowers the men keeping Celina captive and they reunite.
