Bulaklak sa City Jail
by Lualhati Bautista
Bulaklak sa City Jail is a 1984 Filipino drama film written by Lualhati Bautista and directed by Mario O'Hara and it depicts the situation of women in the city jail, the last item in a series of outstanding outputs by the local movie industry in 1984. Among other things, three distinctions will secure it as a last a footnote in the history of contemporary Philippine cinema: the people involved in its production marks an auspicious debut for the Cherubim outfit, it showcases Nora Aunor's best performance for her comeback year, and it signals the emergence of Mario O’Hara as a director whose command of craft has caught up with his conscience – an expectation which seemed to have been forgotten in the wake of similar successes by relatively more recent filmmakers. The story follows the searing odyssey of Angela, a victim of a miscarriage of justice, from her incarceration in the women's section of an urban prison, through her escape and delivery of her love child in a city zoo, to her recapture and eventual legal triumph in obtaining custody of her baby.