Directed by Roderick Cabrido, Mallari tells us the terrifying story of a priest who was accused of killing 57 people because he believed that by making the sacrifice, he could save his mother. Little did the priest know that the boon of immortality that he was seeking for his mother was not a boon after all. Some believed that there was a demon inside the priest, Juan Severino Mallari, while the comparatively rational lot had a very different point of view. The film is inspired by true events, though the writer and director have added certain fictional elements to it, mainly to increase the entertainment quotient and to make the conflicts even more invigorating. In my personal opinion, if the film had tried to understand what happened inside the mind of the priest from a scientific viewpoint, the viewing experience would have been more intriguing. Adding aspects like astral projection, time travel, etc., might have made it entertaining, but the film, in the end, didn’t bring anything unique to the plate. After researching what actually happened in 1812, I came to know that there were psychiatrists at that time who documented the incident, and they studied the case of the priest and came to a certain conclusion about his mental health. Their speculations were obviously in stark contrast to the folklore and, I must say, much more logical and believable. But still, the case of Juan Severino Mallari continues to intrigue everyone, and even though 200 years have passed since the incident, it is difficult to understand that a man went and killed 57 people. So, let’s find out which aspects of 2024 Filipino film actually took place in real life.
So, the story began back in 1812 when a priest named Juan Severino Mallari came to the parish of Magalang. Society expected a lot from the priest because he harbored a deep desire to uplift the downtrodden and bring about a change in how things were done. In the film, we also saw that when Juan Mallari came there, he wanted to be remembered as someone who made things better for the people and who changed oppressive norms. In the film, we are shown that Juan believed that his mother was sick, so he killed people and made a deal with the devil. In real life, Juan, over a period of time, started to believe that his mother was bewitched and that he needed to make sacrifices to cure her of her ailment.
There was a psychologist at the time named Luciano PR Santiago, who, later in his work, stated that Jaun Miller was suffering from some serious disorders. But the native people saw it very differently. They believed that he was doing black magic to evoke evil spirits so that his mother would stay alive forever. It is true that Mallari went on to kill 57 people, and in his mind, he did so only because he wanted to release his mother from the curse. In the end, the man was sentenced to death, and Luciano Santiago believed that things didn’t transpire in a fair manner. According to Santiago, Juan Mallari was a patient, and he was not of a sane mind. The primary rule of each and every legal system is that a person committing an act should be fully aware of its consequences, and Santiago believed that when Juan Miller was killing those people, he was doing it under the misguided belief that he was saving his mother. Santiago went on to say that the legal system should make certain amendments and treat cases where the perpetrators are experiencing mental health issues in a separate bracket.
Now, the entire part where it is shown that Juan Miller was actually able to save his mother’s life, who lived on for 200 years, is all fictional. Also, the entire part where we see Jonathan going back to his ancestral house and traveling through time was obviously not true, and it was only added to make the conflict more interesting. As I stated before, for me, the most intriguing part of this story wasn’t its horror elements but the fact that a man killed 57 people living under the influence of a psychiatric illness. Fazil’s Manichitrathazhu, which was written by Madhu Muttam, was one such film where we had the pleasure of dwelling inside the psyche of a person who had criminal tendencies and was suffering from a serious mental disorder. In Mallari, too, the fact that Juan didn’t stop after killing one person spoke volumes about the kind of troubled mental state he was in.
Mallari, the film, would have fared quite well if the makers had taken that route. But then again, it’s my personal opinion, and I believe the film will find its audience, and they will probably appreciate the makers’ artistic choices.
