Tommy & Marita off the beaten path

MANILA, Philippines - When was the last time you saw Tommy Abuel and Marita Zobel onscreen? If you can’t remember, chances are you’re not alone.

The veteran actors have shied away from the public for years, and their reappearance — on TV or film — is, at the very least, reason to channel surf and or check out the cinemas.  

Now, fans looking for a nostalgia fix, or curiosity seekers raring to find out how Tommy and Marita look, act and (gasp!) perform scenes that suggest kissing and other forms of intimacy, can finally catch them onscreen.

Tommy and Marita play husband and wife Justino and Corazon in the Cinemalaya entry Dagsin, produced by real-life couple Atom and Anne Magadia.

Tommy and Marita agree their age limits them on what they can and can’t do onscreen. As a senior couple in Dagsin, people don’t expect them to treat each other the way LizQuen, ElNella, JaDine and KathNiel do. So while Tommy and Marita like the story of mature love in Dagsin, they expressed misgivings about delicate scenes.

Marita told Anne, the film’s supervising producer and co-writer (with Atom), “I don’t know if you know but I’ve been in this business for a long time. I really love the script, that’s why I’m talking to you. But this is my first kissing scene in my whole life.”

Anne assured Marita she had nothing to fear. They won’t put anything onscreen that the latter won’t approve of. Besides, Anne pointed out, it’s wrong to think that a couple who happens to be older than the rest of us are not entitled to an “interesting” life together.

Marita Zobel had to ask the permission of her adult children first before agreeing to do the film —Photo by VER PAULINO

Still, Marita wanted to get her San Francisco-based children’s opinion first. When she called them, they simply told their mom to go for it. Tommy was not only wary about the suggested kissing scene because it might look “obscene.” He was afraid the audience will laugh at his bathing scenes.

Yes, he could do a “wet scene” had he been a lot younger, but not now, when he doesn’t have that to-die-for body that looks great onscreen.

Atom, the director told Tommy the camera won’t show his entire naked body. It will stop a little below his shoulders. Like Anne, Atom assured Tommy that the scenes would be treated with utmost taste and respect.

After they shot the scenes, Tommy and Marita couldn’t believe they did the unthinkable. They asked Atom to play back the scenes again and again.

If the producers are bold enough to come up with something as commercially risky as a film about an older couple’s enduring love (Benjamin Alves and Janine Gutierrez play the younger Justino and Corazon), it’s because Atom and Anne see themselves in the story.

Sixteen years of marriage taught Atom and Anne that there’s more to real love than sweet nothings and gazing at each other’s eyes. Their daughter’s near-fatal brush with multilobar pneumonia and other struggles while they were working on film projects in California, tested their strength as a couple.

“Our daughter’s vital signs were going down,” recalls Anne. “It’s just by the grace of God that she’s alive today.”

To her,  Dagsin is so much more than their first foray into filmmaking in the country. It’s a purging experience which allows her and Atom to shake off the past years’ agonies from their system.

Anne was herself incapacitated due to a spinal operation that threatened to take away her ability to give birth (hers and Atom’s children have cameos in Dagsin). She knows how it feels to be wheelchair-bound the way Justino did.

Anne and Atom hope to totally say goodbye to this — and other ghosts of the past — by bringing Dagsin to the US someday.

As it is, opening Dagsin yesterday, not only in Metro Manila cinemas but also in Cebu, is not only a milestone in their filmmaking career. It’s also a victory in their journey as a couple who has weathered the worst storms and emerged stronger, more in love because of, and in spite of all the trials they’ve been through.