Carmi Martin

A brief overview of her work

Of the actors in Cain and Abel, I was most enamoured by Carmi Martin who portrayed Zita, the girlfriend from Manila. Level-headed and confident, Martin’s Zita is arguably stronger and fiercer than her boyfriend. When Ellis demands the farm, Zita reminds him how unfair this is, and encourages him to make up with his brother. When that attempt at reconciliation results in a rather humiliating event, she is supportive and understanding, though also willing to take things into her own hands.

The stereotype of a city-wise girlfriend is common enough, but Zita is measured, fair, exacting, and kind. Later, I learned that, to my surprise, Martin has mostly been a comedic actor and that her dramatic roles have been few and far between. I can’t quite pinpoint where my fascination with Martin lies… when I interviewed her, she referred to herself as “diligent, though not a particularly great actress”. More comfortable doing comedy, I think even she has underrated her dramatic work.

Carmi Martin started modeling part-time at seventeen and was spotted by the Filipino “King of Comedy” Dolphy. This landed her a role in his rip-off of Charlie’s Angels, Dolphy’s Angels the next year. Unlike Charlie Townsend, Dolphy is very involved.

All four of Dolphy’s Angels worked through the 80s, with Carmi Martin and Yehlan Catral working again together the following year in the James Bond spoof, crown of the Filipino Exploitation era, 1981’s For Y’ur Height Only (only 1 left copy of the Mondo Macabro DVD edition in the Staff Picks’ section of the Vinegar Syndrome website).

Her first film with Lino Brocka was the 1981 romantic comedy Dalaga si misis, binata si mister in which she played the 16-year-old girlfriend Laila, of a recently separated advertising man, Vic (Christopher de Leon). Vic’s wife, Dalia, was played by none other than his real wife Nora Aunor, with whom he was in the process of separating. The two had married in 1975 (when he was 19 and she was 18) and separated in 1980. When the film premiered, Martin, was attacked on the way to her car by avid fans.

After that, Martin worked throughout the 80s and 90s with a number of the biggest directors of the day, including Ismael Bernal, Marilou Diaz-Abaya, and Lino Brocka on many other films. Though her work is not readily available (yet), and lots of it was television, I wanted to highlight a few from her body of work.

1. Working Girls (1984)

   

Hailed in its time as a feminist statement, and one that Martin herself likes in particular, Ishmael Bernal’s Working Girls (1984) has aged inconsistently, but remains a beloved classic for many in the Philippines.

The film follows seven women trying to make it in Makati City in the mid-80s. Martin plays a seriously short-sighted secretary trying to land bigger and better bosses; Baby Delgado (Becky in Cain and Abel) plays a Spanish speaking coporate executive chasing a man who is wooing both Hilda Koronel and Rio Locsin’s characters — a hustling saleswoman and naïve secretary respectively. Chanda Romero plays a married woman shooting up the corporate ladder exhausted by her husband’s jealousy. Rounding up the cast are Gina Pareno’s level-headed bank executive and forever-in-debt Rose, played by Maria Isabel Lopez.

Deliciously fun, paired best with Nine-to-Five. A 2010 TV remake happened, with Martin reprising her role as Suzanne.

2. Bayan Ko (1984)

Recently restored by Le Chat Qui Fume in France (with, ahem, English subtitles), Bayan Ko is one of those true masterpieces in Carmi’s filmography. She joined here by another Cain and Abel cast member, Phillip Salvador. In the lead role, Salvador plays Turing, a printing press worker awaiting the birth of his first child. When his wife (Gina Alajar) is ordered bedrest and is later unable to leave the hospital due to unpaid bills, Turing financial problems mount. He agrees not to join his colleagues’ budding labor union in exchange for a raise. Soon caught between his friends at the picket line, and his pressing need for money, he resorts to extreme measures to make ends meet.

Suppressed until the following year in the Philippines due to scenes showing real protests against the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, the film went on to compete at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. Usually translated into English as “This is My Country,” this is one of Lino Brocka’s most overtly political films, crafting out of his usual motifs — intense familial melodrama, cross-examination of power structures as it affects the working class relations, and the cathartic potential for violence to erupt — a microcosmic portrait of the Philippines the 1980s, as the title implies.

Available via Le Chat Qui Fume

3. Cain at Abel (1982)

   

Cain and Abel finds Señora Pina (Mona Lisa) pit her two sons against each other in an attempt to control both. Openly favouring her younger son, Ellis (Christopher de Leon) she’s threatened when he arrives home with a new metropolitan girlfriend, Zita played by Carmi Martin. Neither familiar with the more conservative rural customs nor, perhaps due to having lost her parents young, unacustomed to taking orders from elders, the strong-headed city-girl immediately butts head with the aging matriarch, seeing clearly through her manipulations and controlling behaviour.

Without any comedy to speak of, Martin’s performance presents Zita as a nuanced, fair and confident woman unafraid to enter a spider web of traumatic family drama.

After a dip in the early noughts, Martin is making her way back to the screen these last few years in a new generation of Filipino films. Still diligent and a comedian at heart, she’s now often seen in supporting, comedic roles. And of the many available online, one of the best loved is the following romantic comedy from 2013.

4. Four Sisters and a Wedding (2013)

Four sisters, each with different circumstances and lifestyles, rush back to the Philippines when they hear that their baby brother is getting married. The women resort to dramatic and comical pranks to try and stop the wedding.

Perfectly fine as a romantic comedy, Four Sisters and a Wedding sees Martin reprise her favourite role as a comedian: a very over-the-top prospective mother-in-law, the ire of the four sisters in the title. Available on Netflix. A prequel, Four Sisters before the Wedding, was made in 2020 (without Martin, I’m afraid), but was shot by the cinematographer of our next release… which we’re excited to announce very shortly!

Follow her on Instagram at @misscarmi_

And send her some love if you liked Cain and Abel!

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