Note: Seems to also sometimes be titled "Manila in the Claws of Neon"

I'll be honest. I watched this film because of the director, Lino Brocka's, bio after finding an initial mention of him on Tvtropes. For various reasons, the combination of gay, Mormon, film director, provincial, UP affiliate and anti-Marcos figure was of great interest to me. As this film was considered of sufficient quality and importance that Martin Scorcese and the World Cinema Foundation went to significant effort to restore it; and has been called by at least one British film critic the "Best Filipino Film Ever Made", it seemed the most appropriate to watch of his works. For those reading; I believe it's currently available through the Criterion Collection.

First, the bad. The acting, is, frankly, middling on the whole. Nobody turns in a terrible performance, but the main actors are not particularly good, either--though I suspect this might be simply because the period tended to see more subdued performances than contemporary films. It might well also simply be a cultural gap; seeing as I am very much not a Filipino born circa 1950. At least in the case of the lead, his relatively wooden expression is, in context, quite understandable. The story itself is based off of a serially published work that, insofar as it is portrayed in the film, feels nothing if not Dickensian--both in good and bad ways. The music, when it occurs, is very distinctly 1970s. And the director's homosexuality intercedes into the story in a way that some may well find quite jarring, though the more I examine that facet of the film, the more I actually appreciate that particular portion of it.

However--all that being taken into account--what I found was far more compelling than I expected. Indeed, I scarcely remember being riveted to the screen more deeply than with this film; though I will concede that for personal reasons certain aspects of it were probably much more fascinating to me than they would be to most viewers.

The film follows the story of the classic country boy in big city archetype Julio Madiaga; but it's quite clear from very early on to any viewer that if this film does have a main character, it is the city itself, the pulsing, beating morass of flesh, concrete and neon that occupies a rugged patch of land in Luzon. Indeed, I think that what makes the film strangely captivating is the almost Tolkienesque style of worldbuilding [presumably made easier by the world in question being very, very real]. Julio's journey constantly gives us glimpses of something else, never a full and complete story, just enough to tantalize the viewer. There is a sense that every character that he encounters has their own full life; their own strange mysteries, their own virtues and vices, that we will never grasp.

Perhaps this comes from my own curiosity--or the episodic source material--but either way, the film is told more in a series of vignettes than anything else. We first see Julio asking for a job at a construction site as a day laborer, and it's clear he is already a man with nothing left. He is now part of Manila's population of transient construction workers; a population that is often too poor to afford the closed-toe shoes required to work on any serious construction site¹. The tropical sun is harsh; the site foreman greedy and indifferent--upon first receiving wages, Julio is shorted a significant amount [it is implied the foreman is likely pocketing the difference] but upon complaining is told by his fellow workers that he should consider himself lucky to have any work at all. Each of these workers has their own little story, always of coming to the city in the hopes of striking it rich--but more often than not they meet a brutal end instead. The film does show briefly one man whose night school² allowed him to escape this pit and work as an advertising agent for wages completely unimaginable to Julio, but it is clear that most men are simply ground down and spat out by the lure of hope, as Julio and his missing lover, Ligaya, are.

That I almost forgot the missing Ligaya is not surprising; as the film at times seems to do so itself. We only see her in brief flashbacks to Julio's old life as a simple Visayan³ fisherman. We learn that she was taken by a certain "Mrs. Cruz" to Manila with the promise of work; and only the most innocent viewer would not immediately see through her act, especially having seen the actual life of those migrant workers on the fringes of the city. As Julio never heard from her again, he followed her there to find her fate; after depleting his savings and eventually having what little remained of them stolen, he took work at a construction site before the start of the film. Perhaps most puzzling is the fact that he knows the precise location of Ligaya--indeed, whenever he has the chance he will take a long stare at the small Chinese shop where he is almost certain she is being kept. Yet; passively, he waits--unwilling to break in; and in full knowledge that the police would be indifferent to his predicament at best--indeed, one friend of his is killed by the police after wronging his boss.

In any case; Julio's fall through the cracks continues. He is laid off from his construction site and struggles to find work. Spending a period homeless, he is taken in by a kind stranger, whom it is soon revealed makes his living as a gay prostitute--the very existence of which surprises the still-naive Julio. The film is deeply interested in prostitution; but in a way which strips it of almost any eroticism. It represents the ultimate fate of those whom fall through the cracks of Manila; and, following this pattern, Julio--clearly straight--is convinced to try his hand at it. Our brief encounter with the men of the evening reveals a portrayal that is almost positive, and certainly empowering in a sense--though Julio doesn't have the spirit to participate, the men in this line of work seem surprisingly cheerful and satisfied, especially compared to their female counterparts. For a poor, working-class man with no other skills, this is one way to a semblance of a middle class life. The men care about consent; their cadre is welcoming. And, interestingly, the only real 'sex scene' in the film is between Julio and a male client, whom afterwards suggests he take up dancing or singing because he's no good at sex.

Female prostitution, on the other hand, is viewed much more negatively. As we later hear from Ligaya herself; women are trafficked from the provinces; virtually all are on some kind of drugs; and their ultimate fate is unknown, but certainly not good. Despite this, virtually all the men in the film are shown or implied to indulge in it; when a prostitute visits the construction site Julio works at--and also sleeps at--he is the only one not to utilize her services, presumably out of either faithfulness or sympathy to the lost Ligaya. The women and girls whom fall do not return; the widow of one of Julio's comrades back at the construction site vanishes to a brothel and is never seen again despite the efforts of Julio's friends to keep her out of it.

And that last thing is perhaps in a way what the film is really about--the social ties between the folk of the underclass. Those whom live in poorer countries or, indeed, poorer communities, might find this sort of thing quite familiar; but as an American it was simply fascinating to see⁴. Even the day laborers were willing to support each other; at one point one worker whom literally lives with his family in a tin shed suspended above a pool of sewage offers to let Julio stay at his place overnight. Julio, on his part, is more than willing to support his comrades fiscally, whether to help a widow or to cover schoolbooks, even when the man, in the case of the latter, just spent his wages on a few minutes with a prostitute. In a country with no safety net; your only safety is in your social connections. An almost medieval outlook, in a place where many of the social transformations of the 19th and 20th century seem to have never occurred. Perhaps that's what is captivating about the film; the full-scope depiction of a population that is almost entirely ignored; a population that the kleptocratic Marcos regime tried to paint over unsuccessfully [acknowledging this failure, the film itself briefly notes the events of the First Quarter Storm in a communist rally⁵].

A few more notes. First, while I would not identify myself as a cinematography nerd, the camera work is excellent. The visuals are also very compelling, especially given the constraints on production--I believe most of the film is shot on site. The film alternatively shows us the distinctly Spanish flavor of the city; a display of neon lights and commercial activity that feels straight out of Las Vegas; the few green spaces of Manila, the dirty slums; the dusty, visually busy construction site; and a dozen more shots of everything from restaurants to homes. I found the film visually engaging; indeed, between that and the film's content, it's actually motivated me to start working on an economic history paper about the pursuit of the appearance over the substance of wealth in the Philippines and South Vietnam, though who knows whether I'll finish it. And finally, this film has left me intrigued by the director's other works. Most Philippine media is, to be completely honest, unserious and shallow, and while that is not always in of itself bad, I'm seldom interested in that. In any case, I highly recommend watching this film; if nothing else it's a very interesting experience.

​

1. I have been told this by both a contractor and an architect in the Metro Manila area.
2. Or whatever the equivalent in 1970s Manila was, anyway; presumably finishing his high school diploma while working as a construction worker.
3. The various islands of the central Philippines, generally rural to the point of being quasi-feudal. As I recall, the director himself originated from this region.
4. Having had a number of experiences with Filipinos and those whom live and work with them, their conception of money is... mmm... different. Given my experiences interacting with Nigerian-Americans, I think it's generally consistent among the poorer parts of the world.
5. The First Quarter Storm was a wave of protests, principally by students, unions, liberal and leftist groups, that took place in early 1970 in the aftermath of the economic disaster caused by Marcos' stimulus package in 1969, designed to win him the election without regard for later consequences. Brocka would be intimately involved with this broad movement which persisted until the fall of Marcos in 1986.