Three Years Without God

The film is set in the Philippines under Japanese occupation during the Second World War. Rosario, a village schoolteacher, is engaged to Crispin, who leaves to join the guerrillas. While he is away the Japanese Filipino officer Masugi rapes her. The film does not tell this as the beginning of a love story; it leaves what happened as it is. Masugi afterwards tries to stay near her and to keep her safe between the war and the suspicion of the villagers. What Rosario can do in that position is the real question of the account, and her choices narrow at every step. How the village looks at her is given as a weight as heavy as the occupation itself. The title points to the three years the occupation lasted. Nora Aunor, Christopher de Leon and Bembol Roco appear in Mario O’Hara’s hundred and twenty four minute Filipino film, completed in 1976.