Barber's Tales opens with a narrative voice of a friend of Marilou’s talking about their past: it puts Marilou’s life story in the hands of memory, of an irrevocable past. This gives the entire film a sense of fatality.
However, its tragic character does not stop the film from being extremely likable - and even witty. This is not an inconsistency, on the contrary, it embraces the whole meaning of life. The film is built on two narratives, skillfully balanced: they are in opposition, they pursue one another, and blend into each other until they meld perfectly. On the one hand, from the very start we have a political drama unravelling in the background right from the start (we see headlines in the paper that President Marcos has declared a state of emergency), which then progressively develops; on the other, the story of the protagonist’s brief career as a village barber.
Following the sudden death of Marilou’s husband, the village they live in finds itself without its barbero. His widow, who has learnt the art from her husband, decides to take his place, creating a scandal: the first ever female barber in history! Female solidarity comes in the shape of her friends Tessie and Susan; then, even the prostitutes from the local brothel send their clients to Marilou, telling them that if they do not go to her, they will reveal their infidelities to their wives. This film offers sparkling portrayals of local life, with credible sketches of folk characters, like the wise village priest (the scene in which he advertises Marilou’s trade before preaching is delightful), or Susan who is tormented by her sex-obsessed husband: her icy expression when she tells Marilou about the amusing (not to her husband!) revenge she took on him is priceless, as is Marilou’s face as she listens.
But this is no provincial comedy. As life plods along in this sleepy village, young rebels fight the Marcos dictatorship, the militia arrest people, faraway gunfire is heard during the night, blood flows.
The political tragedy which was initially appearing in the background, emerges powerfully to the frontline of the film. Partly thanks to an unlikely friendship, Marilou finds herself joining the rebellion. And thus we again witness the female solidarity that we first saw in an almost comedic form, when the women got together to support the barber’s shop; this time they unite to back the rebel (a highlight is the solemn procession scene).
Barber's Tales would be inconceivable without the truly monumental portrayal by Eugene Domingo. FEFF regulars have already witnessed her skills as a great performer, both comic and dramatic, and surely remember her ability to give a superbly self-ironic acting lesson in The Woman in the Septic Tank. But even those who are familiar with her previous work will be blown away by the controlled force of her acting in Barber's Tales, which reaches new heights – though never overplayed - thanks to the expressive power of her eyes and face. Her portrait of a long-suffering woman (in the dark scenes of the film as well as the grotesque ones, like the tragicomic hysteric fits of the dead husband’s fat sister) only needs a close-up to give us the whole range of human intensity. This sense of humanity transmitted to the audience brings to mind comparisons with none other than Anna Magnani.
Giorgio Placereani