Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Lino Brocka, 1975) English Title: Manila in the Claws of Neon Lino Brocka is arguably the Philippines' most recognizable director. Aside from the widely released Macho Dancers (1988), one of the few Filipino films that have been distributed internationally most probably because of its gay content rather than its quality, his films get showcased in Filipino cinema retrospectives in different film festivals. The usual suspects areInsiang (1976), Bona (1980), and Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag(Manila in the Claws of Neon), Brocka's arguably most complicated work which landed in some international critics' lists as one of the most important films ever made. The acclaim is not undeserved. Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag is a tremendous and powerful film. It's plot is derived from a serial published in a local magazine, knitted together by screenwriter Clodualdo del Mundo, Jr. The result is something that can easily be seen asa derivative of the Greek myth of Orpheus' traveling to Hades to rescue his wife. Brocka's Hades is of course Manila, with its injustices hidden by affluence and commercialism as paraded by the several high-rise buildings and the neon lights that dot the metropolis. Orpheus is Julio Madiaga (Bembol Roco). Orpheus' wife is LigayaParaiso (Hilda Koronel). Julio, a fisherman from the province, travels to Manila to look for Ligaya, who was whisked away by a certain Mrs. Cruz (Juling Bagalbago) from the province to work and supposedly study in Manila. However, Ligaya was prostituted to a Chinese merchant who would trap her and threaten her every time she thinks of escaping his clutches. Julio would be stalking Mrs. Cruz for months to look for his beloved Ligaya. However, his money runs out and he becomes forced to look for work. Julio starts working in a construction site. There, he gets immersed in the troubles of the common laborer. The other laborers complain as to how the foreman would exploit them by lending them their own money, substantially depleting a portion of their wages to atrocious money-making schemes of those above them. Julio befriends Atong (Lou Salvador), one of the laborers who welcomes homeless Julio to his house in the slums. There's an interesting comparison Brocka drives at here. Atong's fate is tragic. He is practically killed for a mere squabble leaving his sister to prostitute herself in a bar, and his paralyzed dad to burn to death when the slums area suspiciously catches fire during the Christmas season. Another of Julio's companions in the construction site however hits it big and is employed in an advertising company. In a stroke of circumstance, the lucky one gets to meet Atong's sister in the girly bar, and presumably pays for her services. Interesting is the fact that former companions become each others' oppressors, and a stroke of luck might change one's status, and from there, turn himself, probably unknowingly, into one of the victimizers in this urban hell. Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag is structured into episodes. After the episode with the construction site, homeless Julio is wooed into becoming a street hustler for a chance for quick cash. He sells his body, his dignity, his manhood for the original promises of a bright future by the neon lights that tempt everyone to enter the city. Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag is basically a film that threads together snippets of melodramatized chunks of reality. It's a huge cake to chew on and one might actually consider the film a bit too painful to watch, much too depressing and too tragic. The tale of Orpheus is subjected to the test of modern reality where hell is not another world, but a city where sweat, blood, and tears are within commerce, and those who are ignorant enough to get enchanted by its grandiose promises are oppressed and forever trapped in its clutches. In the end, Julio is trapped in a dead end right after committing a murder. A mob gathers ready to beat him up, probably to death. Brocka shies away from showing Julio's violent demise but instead centers on Julio's face. It's a ghastly sight. Julio, trapped and wide-eyed. It is that moment in the film where the character can adequately predict his future. During the entire film, Julio walks around Manila not knowing whether he'll ever meet Ligaya, or he'll have a place to stay for the night, or what odd jobs he'll eventually end up doing. But at that final moment, you can tell from the horror painted in his face, he know very well that he's done for.
Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (1975)
Filed under: Movie Review — Tags: brocka, edgardo reyes, filipino, lino brocka, maynila, reyes — dementedguy @ 9:30 am
Director: Lino Brocka Running time: 123 minutes Synopsis and Evaluation In conversations regarding the best Filipino film of all time, lots of titles pop up. Some would say Oro, Plata, Mata by Peque Gallaga. Others would mention Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos by Mario O’Hara. And then some would claim that such honor should be bestowed upon Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Light) by the legendary Lino Brocka. This film is quite possibly the most famous piece of Philippine cinema abroad having been considered as one of the 100 best films worldwide by notable critics. I only got to see this after three decades of its initial release. During those three decades, a lot of things have already happened. Our country had already seated four presidents, three People Power revolutions and elongated its national debt by massive proportions. Did things change from how Maynila described the life back then to how the Philippines is today? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding no.
The face that tells it all Maynila is the story of Julio Madiaga’s (Bembol Roco) journeys while wandering and living in the streets of Manila. He came from the province to look for her girlfriend in the person of Ligaya Paraiso (Hilda Koronel) which was lured by a certain Mrs. Cruz to work in Manila in exchange for money and education. During his search for Ligaya, Julio stumbled upon various experiences that perfectly describe the rottenness and wretchedness of our society. The film has that certain episodic feel since it tackled many different social issues prevalent in our country. During the first part of the film, we see Julio working in a construction site where he only earns P2.50 per eight hours of work. He is not compensated enough for a strenuous and risky job. Adding insult to the injury, he later learned that he should get four pesos for his troubles but the foreman already sequestered the difference. He cannot complain because his job will be in jeopardy the moment he does so.
Sounds familiar? Surely it does since the problems tackled by Maynila three decades ago still linger in our present society. It seems that nothing ever changes. Take the case of Ligaya which was duped and became a libido-releasing creature of a monstrous Chinese businessman in Binondo. She can’t escape because the bastard impregnated her and threatened that he would kill her the moment she tried to. This is similar to those young women being promised a comfortable life by recruiters and then will be “sold” like a commodity — heinous, soulless people that deserve the fire and brimstone of hell. Poverty, corporate greed and slavery, prostitution (both male and female), human exploitation, injustices are some of the problems shown in Maynila. These gloomy stories are set against a backdrop of barren soils, contaminated drainages, garbage-filled lands and slums — perfect to describe the filthy and ugly side of our country. These shots are breathtaking — breathtakingly painful, suffocating and depressing. Brocka painted the picture of our society with power, emphasis and dismal energy that is crying for help and attention. I can compare this film to Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. Julio, like Travis in Taxi Driver, is a gentle and ignorant person that was slowly devoured by what he sees on the environment around him. At first, they are still absorbing the cruelty of the real world but a countless barrage of murky events around took its toll on them and made them do things out of character. But allow me to emphasize that Maynila is a far stronger film than the Scorsese classic. And Julio, unlike Travis, suffered a tragic ending which is a more powerful and emphatic way of showing the miserable life of a person such as Julio. Maynila’s ending is shocking, poignant, angry, emphatic and memorable. The Final Word During the dangerous time that is the Marcos regime, Brocka crafted a film with a lot of courage. This is a brave endeavor that deserves all the accolades it is receiving up to now. This is one of the films that makes me proud as a Filipino — a masterpiece in every sense of the word. This is a required viewing.
I.
PANIMULA
Ano nga ba ang maikling kwento? Ito ay isang uri ng masining na panitikan na tinatayang hindi lalagpas sa pitong libo at limang daang salita. Ito ay may banghay, tauhan paksa at tagpuan. II. A.
PORMALISTIKO Buod o Synopsis
Si Julio ay napadpad sa Maynila mula sa probinsya. Siya ay namasukan sa isang construction site. Hindi sapat ang kanyang kita gayundin ng kanyang mga kasamahan pagkat maliit lang ang sweldo roon. Si Julio ay nakitira sa kanyang kasamahan rin sa trabaho. Noong malapit nang matapos ang gusaling iyon, nagbawas na ng mga trabahador ang nagpagawa ng gusali. Isa sa mga tinanggal at nabawas si Julio bilang construction worker. Dahil doon ay umalis rin si Julio doon sa tinitirahan niyang bahay. Naisip niya ang kanyang kaibigang si Pol. Dahil doon ay hinanap niya ito at doon rin siya nakitira sa kaibigan niya. Dahil rin kay Pol ay nakahanap ng regular na trabaho si Julio at kumikita na siya ng maayos. Isang gabi habang naglalakad si Julio ay parang naaninag niya ang kanyang kababayang si Ligaya, ngunit hindi niya sigurado kung si Ligaya nga iyon sapagkat nakita niya lang ito sa isang parang paupahan. Noong hinahanap ni Julio ang nanakaw niyang wallet ay nakita niyaa si Linda, ang kanyang kababata at kaibigan sa probinsiya. Niyaya niya itong kumain sa isang restawran at naikwento ni Ligaya na nagging biktima siya ng prostitusyon sa Maynila. Ngayon ay may
nakilala siyang isang Intsik na nagngangalang Ah Tek. Niyaya ni Julio si Ligaya na tumakas na sa Maynila at umuwi na ng probinsiya. Napagplanuhan nilang magkita sina Ligaya at Julio mula alas dose hanggang alas tres. Hindi sumulpot si Ligaya sa napagplanuhan nila ni Julio. Nabalitaan niya sa kanyang kaibigang si Pol na namatay pala si Ligaya sapagkat nahulog ito mula sa taas ng kanyang tinutuluyan. Labis na naghinagpis si Julio nang malamang patay nap ala si Ligaya. Tahimik lamang siya hanggang mailibing si Ligaya. Natapos ang kwento na napatay ni Julio ang kasintahang Intsik ni Ligaya na si Ah Tek. B. 1.
MGA ELEMENTO PAKSA
Ang kahirapan ng buhay ng mga probinsiyano sa Maynila at ang pagkamaaalalahanin ng isang probinsiyano sa kanyang kauri. 2.
TAGPUAN
Ang tagpuan sa kwentong sa mga kuko ng liwanag ay sa Maynila. 3.
TAUHAN
Si Julio na isang probinsyanong lumuwas ng Maynila upang magtrabaho, si Pol na kaibigan ni Julio, si Ligaya na kaibigan rin ni Julio na matagal na niyang hindi nakikita at si Ah Tek na kasintahan ni Ligaya. 4.
BANGHAY
a.
PANIMULA
Si Julio ay napadpad sa Maynila mula sa probinsya. Siya ay namasukan sa isang construction site. Hindi sapat ang kanyang kita gayundin ng kanyang mga kasamahan pagkat maliit lang ang sweldo roon. Si Julio ay nakitira sa kanyang kasamahan rin sa trabaho. b.
SAGLIT NA KAKINTALAN
Noong malapit nang matapos ang gusaling iyon, nagbawas na ng mga trabahador ang nagpagawa ng gusali. Isa sa mga tinanggal at nabawas si Julio bilang construction worker. Dahil doon ay umalis rin si Julio doon sa tinitirahan niyang bahay. Naisip niya ang kanyang kaibigang si Pol. Dahil doon ay hinanap niya ito at doon rin siya nakitira sa kaibigan niya. Dahil rin kay Pol ay nakahanap ng regular na trabaho si Julio at kumikita na siya ng maayos.
Isang gabi habang naglalakad si Julio ay parang naaninag niya ang kanyang kababayang si Ligaya, ngunit hindi niya sigurado kung si Ligaya nga iyon sapagkat nakita niya lang ito sa isang parang paupahan. c.
PAPATAAS NA AKSYON
Noong hinahanap ni Julio ang nanakaw niyang wallet ay nakita niyaa si Linda, ang kanyang kababata at kaibigan sa probinsiya. Niyaya niya itong kumain sa isang restawran at naikwento ni Ligaya na nagging biktima siya ng prostitusyon sa Maynila. Ngayon ay may nakilala siyang isang Intsik na nagngangalang Ah Tek. Niyaya ni Julio si Ligaya na tumakas na sa Maynila at umuwi na ng probinsiya. Napagplanuhan nilang magkita sina Ligaya at Julio mula alas dose hanggang alas tres. d.
KASUKDULAN
Hindi sumulpot si Ligaya sa napagplanuhan nila ni Julio. Nabalitaan niya sa kanyang kaibigang si Pol na namatay pala si Ligaya sapagkat nahulog ito mula sa taas ng kanyang tinutuluyan. e.
PABABANG AKSYON
Labis na naghinagpis si Julio nang malamang patay nap ala si Ligaya. Tahimik lamang siya hanggang mailibing
si Ligaya. Natapos ang kwento na napatay ni Julio ang kasintahang Intsik ni Ligaya na si Ah Tek. f.
WAKAS
Natapos ang kwento na napatay ni Julio ang kasintahang Intsik ni Ligaya na si Ah Tek. g.
TUNGGALIAN
Tao laban sa lipunan, sapagkat si Julio at si Ligaya ay mga probinsyano at dahil doon ay tinatrato silang maliit at hamak lamang ng mga taga- Maynila. III.
TEORYANG PAMPANITIKAN
A. IPALIWANAG ANG MGA TEORYANG PAMPANITIKAN Ang mga teoryang pampanitikan ay ang mga hinihinalaang pinagmulan ng ideya ng mga manunulat para sila ay makagawa ng mga katha nila. Ilan na rito ang: 1. Teoryang Klasismo- naglalaman ng mga payak na pangyayari. 2. Teoryang Humanismo- nagpapakita ng mga kakayahan ng mga tao at ang kalakasan nito.
3. Teoryang Imahismo- gumagamit ng mga imahen sa kanilang akda. 4. Teoryang Feminismo- binibigyang-diin ang paglaban ng mga kababaihan 5. Teoryang Arkitaypal- Ang paggamit ng may-akda ng mga simbolismo sa kanyang akda. 6. Teoryang Pormalistiko- mga akdang ginagamitan ng tuwirang panitikan. 7. Teoryang Eksistensyalismo- layunin na ipakita na ang tao ay may kakayahang pumili. 8. Teoryang Romantisismo- pagpapakita ng mga paraan ng isang tao na ipakita ang kanyang pagmamahal 9. Teoryang Bayograpikal- mga akdang personal na nararamdaman ng may-akda. 10. Teoryang Saykoanalitiko- ang pagnanasa ng isang tao o pagiging agresibo sa gawaing sekswal. B.
TEORYANG GAGAMITIN SA PAGSUSURI
Teoryang Realismo
C.
PAGSUSURI GAMIT ANG TEORYANG NAPILI
sapagkat sumasalamin ito sa totoong mukha ng buhay sa naganap kila Julio at Ligaya. IV.
REAKSYON
Maganda ang kwentong ito mula kay Edgardo M. Reyes. Kahit na buod lang ang aking nabasa(pagkat isa itong nobela) ay naroon pa rin ang buhay sa kwentong binasa.
FILM REVIEW: MAYNILA SA MGA KUKO NG LIWANAG (LINO BROCKA, 1975)
In the beginning of the film, we see still shots of a black and white Manila, first in its quiet state, then gradually turning into a crowded, busy city. There was no musical scoring for the first part, only sounds from the actual scene, which quickly establishes the reality of Manila and shows the evident sense of realism by the director, Lino Brocka.
Color then comes in once the frame hits Julio Madiaga (Bembol Roco with hair), which sets the tone for the whole film.
Much like the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag(Manila in the Claws of Neon) follows the tragic story of Julio Madiaga and Ligaya Paraiso (Hilda Koronel) and encompasses the several social issues of the Philippines during the seventies (or was it only during the seventies?).
Ligaya is brought to Manila by Mrs. Cruz (Juling Bagabaldo) and was promised to be treated well and to be given proper education. She was hesitant at first, but her mother insisted that she goes. Feeling obligated to help her mother rise from the poverty in the province, Ligaya goes with Mrs. Cruz with high hopes. Those high hopes, however, were soon tarnished when Ligaya discovers that she was brought to Manila to be a prostitute along with two other women from her barrio. She is then met by a greater poverty than what she had grown accustomed to back in her province.
Soon, a letter from Mrs. Cruz addressed to Ligaya’s mother arrives, saying that Ligaya left the business and is nowhere to be found. Julio now feels the need to venture into the underworld that is Manila and find Ligaya.
In order to survive Manila, Julio needs to find a regular job, and so he results to being a low-waged construction worker. He is expected to work for eight hours carrying heavy load and not to mention risking his life at the construction site on a daily basis – and for that he only earns 2.50 PHP per day. To add to that, they have what they call taiwan, wherein their wages are extorted. The other workers, however, advise Julio not to complain because he could easily lose his job once he tries to fight for a higher salary.
Julio’s search for Ligaya goes on, almost to the point of being relentless, and he soon finds the bright claws of Manila sinking deeper into his skin. Julio is soon dispelled from his work at the construction site since they had to cut down the workers given that the building was almost done. In order to attain fast money, Julio then results to prostitution.
Back in the day, going to Manila was likened to the American Dream, where people would fly off to America in hopes of pursuing their dreams. To the people in the province, Manila was their America and was a realm filled with infinite possibilities. They would venture to Manila with high visions for themselves, only to be sullied by its deadly consumerist claws. Chaos would fill the once pleasant utopia one has formed in his psyche and before long, everything will seem nothing more but a distant dream. From utopia to dystopia.
Despite the fact that this is a film done in 1975, the social conditions remain unchanged, if not worse, in the contemporary Philippines. The problem of wages for those with blue collar jobs, the human trafficking for men and women alike, the monstrosity brought about by the consumerist culture – all these issues presented in the film remain pertinent even decades after it was released.
The film closes with a huge crowd chasing after Julio because he had just killed who he believed to be Ligaya’s Chinese husband, or oppressor, as he is portrayed. Julio is met at a dead end, and the men in the crowd start gathering anything in sight that they can use to attack Julio.
The scene slows down at the sight of Julio’s face. What I like about this scene is the ability of Brocka [the director] and Roco [the actor] to portray the last whirling emotions of Julio – terror, anger, and sorrow.
Ligaya’s face then soon appears on the frame, overlapping with Julio’s. If one takes the film on a more optimistic perspective, then this could perhaps signify the reunion of the two ill-fated lovers and their course to a new life with a brighter, better light – a light with no claws.
Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag is arguably one of the most powerful films ever done in the history of Philippine cinema. It portrays the several illnesses the country was and is facing. Watching it in the modern times would even add up to its power, since it remains to be relevant despite decades after its release. The task of the modern Filipino now is to make the issues presented in the film obsolete, and to makeMaynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag nothing more but a nostalgic cinematic tour de force by the illustrious Lino Brocka.
Manila in the Claws of Light When Lino Brocka's Maynila: Sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag screens at the Museum of Modern Art this week, it will play under the English title Manila in the Claws of Light. Since the film was released in its native Philippines 39 years ago, however, it's been translated into English as Manila: In the Claws of Darkness and Manila in the Claws of Neon. This uncertainty of translation reflects the uncertainty of the film's characters, for whom Manila is a maze of dark corners and bright neon signs; throughout, there's no way of telling whether life is more dangerous in the light or the dark. A friend of society's outsiders and misfits, Brocka found only stupidity, not meaning, in the subjugation of the slum-dwellers, prostitutes, callboys, and undocumented workers who make up the underclass of the Philippines's largest city. For Brocka and his characters, Manila is a
libertarian dystopia, where poverty breeds its own predators and victims as the city's poor grasp for the little wealth that hasn't yet been distributed. Every cop is on the dole and every public official is for sale. When Julio (Bembol Roco), a young man from the country, arrives in Manila to search for a lover, Ligaya, who has likely been kidnapped and sold into sex slavery, he's robbed of what little cash he has. Forced to work so he can afford the bare necessities of life, Julio finds a job on an unsafe construction site where he makes two-and-ahalf pesos a day, but four pesos according to the books. It's “the foreman's scam,” Julio calls it, in which the workers allow their employer to pocket a chunk of their pay for fear of losing their only job. Soon, Julio finds himself working as a male prostitute, which pays better than construction even if it requires a different kind of sacrifice. Brocka's Manila is ambivalent to Julio's pain, and in its indifference, the city stamps out every glimmer of hope in his life. There's a deep undercurrent of anger and frustration to Julio's journey. In the first scene of the film, a conversation between construction workers is followed by a fatal accident when a rope holding a bucket of water is accidentally released and the bucket falls from the height of a few stories. At this moment, the smooth, neorealist-influenced camerawork is traded for a quickly edited shot-reverse-shot montage between the bucket and the face of the man standing below it. The bucket hits him and he dies—stupid, meaningless, and avoidable. This harsh, stylized moment of violence, one of several, contrasts with the more subdued tone of the rest of the film. It's a signal to the audience that no matter how hard the characters struggle, this world is indifferent to their pain. Even as Julio scours the city, building relationships with people he meets and getting closer to his goal of finding Ligaya, these short fits of violence and emotion disrupt the
complacency of the characters to their situation, suggesting that there's tragedy to be found in their acceptance of such a fate. Manila can even be seen as a precursor to Jia Zhang-ke's recent A Touch of Sin, with its extended scenes of working-class struggle punctuated by moments of harrowing, highly stylized violence. Like Jia, Brocka suggests that violent reactions should be expected from a society that preys on its vulnerable. By the time Julio reaches his final confrontation with Ligaya's pimp, an act of stupid, violent catharsis feels like his only possible course of action. When it first screened at Cannes in 1978, the word around the festival had it that Manila was a “dirty” movie, perhaps because it's characters were criminals, homosexuals, and the homeless, but also, perhaps, because it had the gall to treat poverty as an ignoble tragedy for which violence is a rational response. RUNTIME 124 min
R ATI N G NR
YEAR 1975
DIRECTOR Lino Brocka
SCREENWRITER Clodualso del Mondo
CAST Hilda Koronel, Rafael Roco Jr., Lou Salvador Jr., Joonee Gamboa
Some random short notes (sorry, I’m really dispensing with the synopsis this time, and yes, there are major spoilers below): 1. This marks the second time I’ve seen a Brocka film where I kind of wished the whole film was filmed like the credit sequence: Maynila begins with stark black-and-white cinematography by Mike de Leon that makes the city look like it was filmed in an earlier decade. It’s of a city slowly waking up — its streets half empty save some horse-drawn calesas and people sweeping refuse from the night before — until it bleeds into color when we see Julio Madiaga at the corner of Ongpin and Misericordia. (In 1974′s Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (see my blog entry here) the horrifying opening scenes before the credits are shot in a beautiful speckled amber.) 2. We don’t quite get the poetry of Edgardo Reyes’ opening in his novel, describing the ragtag construction of a building as “a skeleton quivering hesitantly in the wind” – Sa simula, siya’y isang kalansay na nakatalalan sa hangin. Isang matayog, buhaghag na bunton ng patapong mga piraso ng tabling gato, mabukbok, mabitak, masalubsob, pilipit, kubikong, na pinagpaku-pako nang patayo, pahalang, patulibas, kabit-kabit nang walang wawa, tulad ng kahig-manok sa lupa… (1) – and I had wished that Brocka had lingered a bit longer on the daily routine of work. In a fascinating interview with Rogelio Mangahas, Reyes, a former construction worker himself, says that his “ambition in life was to become a labor leader”, and that the workers were foremost in his mind when he wrote his novel. It’s a pity, then, that we don’t see enough of the rhythms of labor in the film, but it’s understandable, as Julio gets laid off halfway through the movie. 3. What I wrote previously about Brocka’s seeming lack of subtlety in his films still applies here. The names don’t make it easier, though they’re neither Brocka’s nor screenwriter Clodualdo del Mundo Jr.’s fault; they’re taken straight from Reyes’ novel. The protagonist’s surname, Madiaga, is a reference to “patience” (“matiyaga” means “patient”), and his girlfriend’s name is Ligaya Paraiso – literally, Happiness Paradise. (Note to those unfamiliar with the Philippines: it’s not as tendentious as it sounds, as people really can be named Ligaya – including, perhaps, the most famous Ligaya of them all – in much the same way that Grace and Joy are proper names in the U.S. and elsewhere. Ah, but only in the Philippines can you find people actually named Cherry Pie, though, and only Filipinos have relatives you can call “Auntie Baby.” But still.) Best (or worst) of all is the shifty and lecherous Chinese villain’s name, Ah Tek, which sounds like “atik”, ’70s slang for “money” (a reversal of the word “kita,” which means “salary”). And so you can imagine what the dialogue in the film literally sounds like to Tagalog speakers:
I went to see Money, but I was told that there was no Happiness there, or I wandered the streets of Manila looking for Happiness, but couldn’t find her. 4. Here’s one more example, featuring a construction worker with aspirations to be a professional singer. He falls in an accident — literally after he finishes singing “The Impossible Dream” — his body carried away Pieta-like by the other workers. There’s a close-up of his tattered copy of a songhits magazine, with Nora Aunor on the cover; the camera follows the magazine as another worker picks it up exceedingly slowly. “Benny was unlucky, wasn’t he?” asks one. “It’s because he was too happy,” says another. We discover that Benny has died and that his corpse will likely be donated to a medical school because he has no relatives. The worker throws the magazine to the ground; the camera focuses on it for a beat before someone enters the frame with a wheelbarrow and spills gravel on it. 5. So, back to that lack of subtlety: this has usually been explained as Brocka working in a melodramatic style – that is, “melodramatic” not as a pejorative, but as a particular cinematic mode. But I find that his films just aren’t… mannered enough to communicate that he’s using melodrama self-consciously. So when the camera focuses on Julio’s trembling, clenched fists to further underscore his anger, is it an allusion to more theatrical modes of acting? When Hilda Koronel clutches her hair in overwrought dismay as she relates her imprisonment, is it possible that Brocka is utilizing culturally specific cinematic shorthand? Somehow I doubt it. 6. Speaking of the novel as source material, it’s interesting to note that two of the more provocative scenes in the film don’t come from Reyes. (I’ll write about the other scene later, as it kind of involves the shifty and lecherous Chinese villain.) After Julio loses his job and has to leave the lean-to where the construction workers are staying, he ends up sleeping in a park. We get a good illustration of his naivete here, as he clearly has no idea it’s a cruising spot, and soon he falls in with a group of male prostitutes and finds himself in an inadvertent ménage-a-trois with a fluffy Pekingese. The subplot is interesting, in any case, not just because of the set design (by Soxy Topacio!), but because it anticipates the plot of 1988′s Macho Dancer (young man from the provinces, woman lost in the streets of Manila, the seamy world of call boys and strippers). 7. (MAJOR SPOILER). When I first saw Maynila back in the early ‘90s*, I was struck at how uncomfortably anti-Chinese it was; two decades later, I realize I wasn’t wrong. It’s arguably not as pronounced as it is in Reyes’ novel; one of its refrains, for instance, goes: Chinatown. Sa langhap, sa tanawin, sa tibok, sa kaluluwa – Chinatown. Dito’y madarama mo na ikaw na kayumanggi ang dayuhan, hindi silang madidilaw. (146)
Or in English: Chinatown. In smell, in sight, in pulse, in soul – Chinatown. Here you will feel that you who are brown is the outsider, not they who are yellow. Mangahas, in his 1986 introduction, contextualizes Julio’s final desperate act by writing that, in 1966 when Reyes finished his novel, one had yet to see a deeper political consciousness on the part of Filipino writers, much less an ideologically coherent body of anti-imperialist literature. Because of the lack of class analysis back then (I’m paraphrasing this from Tagalog), there were misconceptions about who comprised the negative forces in society (lvi-lvii). It was only in the Seventies, Mangahas writes (after the declaration of Martial Law and the consequent detention of political prisoners), that progressive writers began to see more clearly that (I’m directly translating this and the following quotes from Tagalog) “American imperialism and its domestic conspirators were the real forces [my emphasis] that crippled the livelihood, politics, and culture of Philippine society.” “One cannot ascertain,” Mangahas writes, “whether Reyes’ specific objective in having Julio kill Ah Tek was simply to revenge Ligaya’s death” (lvii). Chinese in the Philippines (and in Southeast Asia in general) have long been historically associated with the mercantile class, but it goes way beyond benign stereotype; witness the ugly spate of kidnappings of Chinese Filipinos that continues unabated. Seen as perpetual outsiders, they’re seen in the film as abusive representatives of the bourgeoisie (in one scene, Julio witnesses a Chinese restaurant owner slap a waitress) and, as the name Ah Tek shows, capital itself. But in his film, Brocka almost unforgivably tips his hand, in one of the other crucial new scenes: that of a Kabataang Makabayan rally with Julio and his friend watching from the sidelines. (Watch for director / actor / writer Mario O’Hara in a cameo as the protest organizer with the bullhorn.) At a time when labor and student organizers could easily be “disappeared” by the Marcos regime, it’s arguably the most fearless part of the film, a provocation. But the fact that this scene of anti-imperialist chants (with O’Hara yelling “Makibaka! Huwag matakot!” and exhorting the listeners to smash capitalism and not be afraid) is immediately followed by Julio’s murder of Ah Tek with an ice pick – this was just distasteful. 8. In his introduction at the Pacific Film Archive screening, Steve Seid talked about how critics have either pronounced Maynila or 1976′s Insiang (see my blog entry here) as Brocka’s best film. I think I’m going with the latter. ———-
*I had the great fortune to see Maynila and many other films in a fantastic Philippine Studies graduate seminar back in the spring of 1991, with Benedict Anderson, one of my former thesis advisers (coincidentally discussed in Michael Guillen’s recent article on Twitch). Unfortunately, many of the copies the Southeast Asia Program had at the time lacked subtitles. Being (if I remember correctly) the only native Tagalog speaker in the class at the time, I was asked (or tasked – I can’t remember which, though I’m fairly sure I received beer money for it, not that I could have legally purchased alcohol at the time) to write detailed synopses for the unsubtitled films. So I had the dubious pleasure of spending hours upon hours watching a film the first time, then painstakingly pressing the rewind button and transcribing bits of dialogue for a second slow run-through, then watching them again on a bigger screen in class. I write “dubious” because some of the films were crap (like Tony Reyes’ 1990 parody of a buddy flick, Tangga en Chos: Beauty Secret Agents, a vehicle for Joey de Leon and Jon Santos), or interesting crap (Peque Gallaga’s Virgin Forest from 1985), but some were just plain amazing (Mike de Leon’s Batch ’81, from 1982). Watching an unsubtitled film via synopsis couldn’t have been very fun for my classmates. (The films weren’t screened for class discussion in any case, but to impart some local flavor.) What was fun, though, was screening Macho Dancer to a roomful of students – historians, political scientists, anthropologists, Army Intelligence guys and maybe a former nun or two among them. Oh, the squirming. Reference: Edgardo M. Reyes, Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag(Manila: De La Salle University Press, 1989).
Abortion
Affirmative Action
Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)
Ageism / Age Discrimination
Airport Screening Procedures
Airport Security
Alcoholism
Animal Rights
Anorexia Nervosa
Anti-Muslim Discrimination
Binge Drinking
Birth Control
Bulimia Nervosa
Bullying
Campus Crime
Capital Punishment / Death Penalty
Chemical Weapons
Child Abuse
Child Labor
Classism
Climate Change
Cloning
Colorisim
Cloud Hacking
Computer Hacking
Corporal Punishment
Corporate Downsizing
Cyber Bullying (Cyberbullying)
Date Rape
Disaster Relief
Domestic Violence
Dream Act
Drinking and Driving
Driving While Black
Drug Abuse / Drug Addiction
Eating Disorders
Ebola Virus Disease
Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Environmental Pollution
Environmental Racism
Equal Pay
Euthanasia / Mercy Killing / Assisted Suicide
Excessive Force By Law Enforcement
Felony Disenfranchisement
Gang Violence
Gay Rights
Genetic Engineering
Genetically Modified Food
Gentrification
Global Warming
Gun Control
Gun Rights
Hate Crimes
Hazing
Health Care Disparities
Health Care Reform
HIV / AIDS
Home Forclosures
Homelessness
Honor Killings
Human Trafficking
Hunger
Identify Theft
Illegal Immigration
Legalization of Marijuana
Legalization of Prostitution
Mall Shootings
Mass Murder
Meth Labs (Methamphetamine Laboratories)
Militarization of Police
Minimum Wage
NRA
National Rifle Association
Obamacare (Affordable Care Act)
Obesity
Organ and Body Donation
Outsourcing Jobs
Pedophilia
Photobombs
Police Brutality
Police Militarization
Pollution
Pornography
Poverty
Prayer in Schools
Racial Disparities in Health Care
Racial Disparities in Sentencing
Racial Profiling
Racism
Rape
Retail Profiling
Recycling and Conservation
Right to Work
Same-Sex Marriage
Sex Trade
Sexism
Sexual Harassment
Sexting
Shopping While Black
Single Parenting
Sleeper Cells
Smoking / Tobacco Use
Social Networking and Privacy
Spousal Abuse
Stand Your Ground Laws
Steroid Use in Sports
Stereotyping
Suicide
Sweat Shops
Teen Pregnancy
Terrorism
Texting While Driving
Texting While Walking
Unemployment
Union Busting
Vigilantism
Violence in Schools
Violence in Music Videos
Violence in Video Games
Voter Disenfranchisement
Voting Rights Restrictions
Workplace Violence
Personal issues versus social issues[edit] Personal issues are those that individuals deal with themselves and within a small range of their peers and relationships.[1] On the other hand, social issues attribute to values cherished by widespread society.[1] For example, the US unemployment rate of 7.8 percent[2] as of October 2012 was a social issue. The line between a personal issue and a public issue may be subjective; however, when a large enough sector of society is affected by an issue, it becomes a social issue. Although one person being fired is not a social issue, the repercussions of 13 million people being fired is likely to generate social issues.
Valence issues versus position issues[edit] A valence issue is typically a social problem that is uniformly agreed upon. [3] These types of issues generally generate a widespread consensus and provoke little resistance from the public. An example of a valence issue would be incest or child abuse. [4] Unlike a valence issue, a position issue typically outlines a social problem in which the popular opinion among society is divided. [4] An example of a position issue is vegetarianism or veganism, due to the lack of widespread consensus from the public.
List of social issues[edit]
Social stratification[edit] Further information: Social stratification and Systems of social stratification The caste system in India resulted in the oppression of those referred to as Untouchables for the past 3,000 years.[citation needed] The caste system was recently banned by the United Kingdom,[5] and theUnited States is also planning to ban it.[6]
Economic issues[edit] Further information: Economic issues in the United States Unemployment rates vary by region, gender, educational attainment, and ethnic group. In most countries (including the developed countries), many people are poor and depend on welfare. In 2007 in Germany, one in six children depended on welfare. That is up from only one in seventyfive in 1965.[7]
Social disorganization[edit] Main article: Social disorganization theory So-called "problem neighbourhoods" exist in many countries. These neighbourhoods tend to have a high drop-out rate from secondary school, and children growing up in these neighbourhoods have a low probability of going to college compared to children who grow up in other neighbourhoods. Abuse of alcohol and drugs is common in these neighbourhoods. Often these neighbourhoods were founded out of best intentions.[8]
Age and the life course[edit] Main article: Agism Throughout the life course, there are social problems associated with different ages. One such social problem is age discrimination. An example of age discrimination is when a particular person is not allowed to do something or is treated differently based on age.
Inequality[edit] Main article: Social inequality Inequality is "the state or quality of being unequal". [9] Inequality is the root of a number of social problems that occur when things such as gender, race, and age may affect the way a person is treated. A past example of inequality as a social problem is slavery in the United States. Africans
brought to America were often enslaved and mistreated, and did not share the same rights as the white population of America (for example, they were not allowed to vote).
Education and public schools[edit] Main article: Educational inequality Education is arguably the most important factor in a person's success in society. As a result, social problems can be raised by the unequal distribution of funding between public schools, such as that seen in the United States.[10] The weak organizational policy in place and the lack of communication between public schools and the federal government has begun to have major effects on the future generation. Public schools that do not receive high standardized test scores are not being funded sufficiently to actually reach the maximum level of education their students should be receiving. [11]
Work and occupations[edit] Social problems in the workplace include occupational stress, theft, sexual harassment, wage inequality, gender inequality, racial inequality, health care disparities, and many more.
Environmental racism[edit] Main article: Environmental racism Environmental racism exists when a particular place or town is subject to problematic environmental practices due to the racial and class components of that space. In general, the place or town is representative of lower income and minority groups. Often, there is more pollution, factories, dumping, etc. that produce environmental hazards and health risks which are not seen in more affluent cities.
Abortion[edit] Main article: Abortion Abortion is split between individuals who are either pro-choice or pro-life. Pro-choice people believe that abortion is a right. They believe that women have that right and shouldn't be prevented from exercising that right by governments. Pro-life people believe that person-hood begins at conception and they believe that abortion is the wrongful killing of an innocent person. [12]
Social issues of the United States[edit]
United States of America[edit] Crime and the justice system[edit] Further information: United States incarceration rate
The federal prison system has been unable to keep up with the steady increase of inmates over the past few years, causing major overcrowding. In the year 2012, the overcrowding level was 41 percent above "rated capacity" and was the highest level since 2004. [13] The federal prison not only has overcrowding, but also has been the center of controversy in the U.S regarding the conditions in which the prisoners are treated. Hate crimes[edit] Main article: Hate crime Hate crimes are a social problem in the United States because they directly marginalize and target specific groups of people or specific communities based on their identities. Hate crimes can be committed as the result of hate-motivated behavior, prejudice, and intolerance due to sexual orientation, gender expression, biological sex, ethnicity, race, religion, disability, or any other identity. [14]
Hate crimes are a growing issue especially in school settings because of the young populations
that exist. The majority of victims and perpetrators are teenagers and young adults, the population that exists within educational institutions. Hate crimes can result in physical or sexual assaults or harassment, verbal harassment, robbery, or even in death. [15] Advertising junk food to children[edit] Further information: Psychological aspects of childhood obesity § Television and advertisements and Fast food advertising The food industry has been accused by some number of people of promoting childhood obesity and ill-health by specifically targeting the child demographic in the marketing of unhealthy food products. The food products marketed often are deemed unhealthy due to their high calorie, high fat, and high sugar contents.[16] In the advertisements, food companies are blamed for adjusting their ads to make seem more appealing, e.g. bigger, fresher, cleaner, smarter and much more. Some common methods of junk food advertising include:
Television commercial campaigns that feature celebrities
Print media campaigns
Billboard campaigns
Event Sponsorship (sporting events and others)
Product placement in films and television programs
Various forms of branding, including clothing
Direction signs and posters, telling people how far a fast food restaurant is
In 2005, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (IOM) released a report requested by Congress that evaluated the influence and nature of food and beverage marketing practices on American children and adolescents. "The report concluded that food and beverage marketing influences the diets and health of children and adolescents; current marketing practices create an environment that puts young people's health at risk; companies and marketers have underutilized their resources and creativity to market a healthful diet; industry leadership and sustained, multisectoral, and integrated efforts are required; and that current public policy institutions lacked the authority to address emerging marketing practices that influence young people's diets." [17] According to Christian and the PHA website, the obesity epidemic in children and adolescents in the U.S. reflects changes in society: The article suggests unhealthy eating choices are due to an increase of sedentary activity (e.g., children watching too much television and playing computer games) and the influence of the media in causing children to eat unhealthy food choices. [18] In the view of some opponents, if governments took action to prevent the marketing of unhealthy food products, they would seriously reduce the prevalence of obesity and its serious health consequences, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. As part of the IOM food marketing report, 10 recommendations were made to both the public and private sectors. One of the recommendations was that the government partner with the private sector to "create a long-term, multifaceted, and financially sustained social marketing program to support parents, caregivers, and families to promote a healthful diet."[19] First lady Michelle Obama and Partnership for a Healthier America have proposed new rules that would limit junk food marketing in public schools. [20] Obesity[edit] Main article: Obesity in the United States Obesity is a prevalent social problem in today's society, with rates steadily increasing. According to the Weight Control Information Network, since the early 1960s, the prevalence of obesity among adults more than doubled, increasing from 13.4 to 35.7 percent in U.S. adults age 20 and older.[21] In addition, today two in three adults are considered overweight or obese, and one in six children aged 6–19 are considered obese.
Hunger[edit] Main article: Hunger in the United States Media propaganda[edit] Further information: Propaganda in the United States, News propaganda, propaganda model and Propaganda techniques Mass media may use propaganda as a means to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view, or to maintain the viewer's attention. Who owns a media outlet often determines things such as the types of social problems that that outlet presents, how long that outlet airs those problems, and how dramatically that outlet presents those problems. The American media is often biased towards one or the other end of the political spectrum; that is, many media outlets have been accused either of being too conservative or of being too liberal. Alcohol and other drugs[edit] Main article: Drug abuse in the United States Drugs are at times the cause of social problems. Drugs such as cocaine and opiates are addictive for some users. A minority of users of such drugs may commit crimes in order to obtain more drugs. In some individuals, drugs such as methamphetamine have been known to contribute to violent behavior, which would be considered a social problem. [22] Drunk driving is on the rise and is the number two cause of accidental deaths, it is a cause of around 17,000 deaths each year. All but 9 states in USA have adopted the Administrative License Revocation where if you are caught drinking and driving and found guilty you will lose your license for a full year. This is a step that is being taken in order to try to avoid the occurrence of this social problem.[23]
Lino Brocka's best-known film to have a screening 6 pm today, Oct. 2 at the Walter Reade Theater. Click on the aforeposted link to buy tickets online. With the film's digital restoration and premiere in this year's Cannes Festival, and subsequent commercial screening at a limited number of theaters, a reprint of my thoughts (pre-restoration) on the film: Maynila at the edge of greatness (Warning: plot discussed in close detail) Lino Brocka is the best Filipino filmmaker ever; his masterpiece, Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Neon, 1975) the greatest Filipino film ever made. That was the consensus arrived at sometime after Maynila first came out, and the idea has persisted ever
since. Has, in fact, been given greater legitimacy with a top spot in the Urian's list of the ten best Filipino films in the past thrty years, and by inclusion in the book Film: the Critic's Choices--a list of what some critics consider the 150 greatest films ever made. That's what they say. What about us--you, me, the mere mortals? What do we think? Strangely enough, it's a proposition we can easily test out ourselves, unlike with the works of other masters of Philippine cinema. Many of, say, Gerardo de Leon's best--Daigdig ng Mga Api (World of the Oppressed, 1965); El Filibusterismo (The Filibuster, 1962); Sawa sa Lumang Simboryo (The Python in the Bell-tower, 1952) have no available prints, and are deemed lost. As recent a filmmaker as Celso Ad. Castillo has had the negatives of his masterwork, Burlesk Queen (Burlesque Queen, 1977) turn to vinegary rot, while his epic Ang Alamat ni Julian Makabayan(The Legend of Julian Makabayan, 1979) is represented by a single faded 16 mm print. Not so with Brocka's Maynila-- a beautifully preserved subtitled print is available for screening (thanks to the picture's cinematographer, Mike de Leon), and the film is shown regularly on cable TV. So how does the film fare, nearly thirty years later? Maynila is the story of a young provincial named Julio Madiaga (Bembol Roco) who goes to the city to look for his lost love, Ligaya Paraiso (Hilda Koronel). He has one adventure after another before he finds Ligaya, who is kept hostage by a Chinese named Ah Tek (Tommy Yap). Julio and Ligaya plan to run away together, but Ah Tek stops Ligaya by killing her. Julio stabs Ah Tek to death, then runs; he's ultimately hunted down and killed himself. The film in outline has a simple story--too simple, you might say; not much structure to it. Julio simply wanders around, passive, and allows everything to happen to him. After a while, he joins a construction company, and learns of unfair labor practices. A fellow worker dies; Julio is ultimately fired. After which he is introduced to the world of gay sex and turns male prostitute. After which he finally meets Ligaya inside a church... The episodic quality may have come from the source, Sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag, by Edgardo Reyes, serialized in Liwayway Magazine from 1966 to 1967. For each episode or installment, the writer provides enough incidents--bringing the end of the installment to enough of a conclusion--to satisfy the reader, at the same time keeping enough elements unresolved to entice him back for more. After twenty or more installments full of subplots and side characters exiting or dying or having climactic fits, you notice several advantages and disadvantages. One is the near-unpredictability--you can almost never guess what's going to happen to whom, or why. Another is the near-formlessness--having to retain the interest of a fickle audience, the writer usually keeps a constantly changing sideshow of clowns and grotesques and whatever going on, while the real story develops almost in the background. It was once a popular way of publishing--Charles Dickens among others presented his novels to the public this way; as Dickens himself might put it, it's as popular an artform as you can imagine, entertaining and easy to digest (no matter how unwieldy the final hardcover may be). And Reyes, despite his considerable literary talents and (or perhaps because of) deeply felt social concerns, clearly wants to be seen as a popular artist, a people's artist. And it's a legitimate way of telling a story. You don't always get the pleasures of a well-made plot--the twists, the reversals, the sudden revelations--but you do get something less conventional, harder to define: something much more similar in feel to real life. There is a crucial difference between novel and film, however, and it isn't just the gay sequences that
Brocka, in a fit of autobiographical exhibitionism, decided to insert into the picture. Brocka's Julio is driven into a corner, taunted, and tortured before he thinks of killing; in Reyes' novel, Julio was already a killer. It's a relatively short passage, where Reyes suggests that Julio follows a man into an alley to murder him--its very casualness, incidentally, making the passage all the more horrifying. It's not just a matter of a small scene or episode being deleted for reasons of length; it's also not a matter of crying "foul!" just because a hair on the original's head was touched. Julio's crime colors our perception of him, makes him less passive, less of a victim or innocent; it makes our feelings for him more ambivalent and complex. By deleting the murder, Brocka ensures that our identification with and love of Julio is absolute. The advantage is that Julio's destruction is made all the more dramatic--the destruction of innocents is always more dramatic. The disadvantage is that the film is more simplistic in its treatment of Julio. Brocka has streamlined and intensified Reyes' novel, but at the cost of emotional complexity. Maybe not much...then again, maybe enough to cross the line between art and melodrama. And this I think is a key weakness in the film. Yes, Maynila has an open, rather amorphous story structure--a perfectly acceptable style used repeatedly with some success (think Robert Altman's Nashville (1976) or its Filipino descendant, Ishmael Bernal's Manila By Night (1980)). But Altman's Nashville and Bernal's Manila gave us a constellation of characters with complex relationships, all interacting, in place of a classically structured story; Brocka's Maynila has just one main protagonist-Julio--interacting with himself. There's really nothing more beyond him than his surface loneliness and suffering. We know little of his past, other than his coming from the provinces and once having a girlfriend; we know he has homosexual tendencies, and that he's capable of murder when pushed--but that's all. Critics have commented on this allegorical quality of Julio--that he's the prototype Filipino, the symbol of the suffering everyman. I think it's a polite way of saying that Bembol Roco--an excellent, natural actor--doesn't have a character to work with here, that playing a nationalist symbol has never made dramatic sense, and that the character's passivity is really the passivity of an actor who has not been given any idea of what's going on. The rest of the cast--Tommy Abuel as Julio's close friend Pol; Yap as Ah Tek; Pio de Castro as Julio's upand-coming friend Imo--are vividly drawn, but again interact with Julio in terms of whether or not they are allies or enemies; there are no shadings, no levels of ambiguity. Hilda Koronel's Ligaya Paraiso, which one critic once described as representing "Ynang Bayan" (Mother Country--!), is possibly the worse offender; her name translated literally means "Joyful Paradise," the kind of obvious dirty-joke name you'd give a porn star, not your daughter. Koronel is given a chance to prove herself late in the picture, with a long monologue delivered to Julio inside a motel room, a sad and sordid tale of rape and forced imprisonment. By monologue's end, with Koronel crying hysterically and Roco giving reassuring caresses, two things pop into your mind: 1) Koronel is a very beautiful and fairly talented young woman, and 2) she's too young and raw to carry off the complex, heavily-loaded monologue she just delivered. Pity, but there you are. I'm not trying to make a case for Maynila not being a great--I think it is, but not for the reasons people have traditionally given for the film. In terms of its "meat" and "bones"--its characterization and story structure--Maynilaisn't much more than an excellently-made melodrama; what makes the film great, finally, is its "skin." Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag has marvelous visual texture, thanks to its cinematographer, Mike de Leon (who would go on to become a great filmmaker himself). From its opening shot of littered sidewalks and choked-up "esteros" (canals) to its final one of Julio, cowering at the bottom of a dead-end alley, it is a series of voluptuous images captured raw and honest. More, the
images are charged with an urgency, an immediacy uniquely Brocka's--as if Brocka had shot the picture right outside the theater where it's screening, developed the rushes, and raced inside to spool the print into the projector, fresh and smoking hot. Giving life to the realism, of course, is Brocka's melodramatic energy. If the characters in Maynila don't benefit from the three-dimensionality of the best screenwriting, they--the leads down to the teeming extras--are blessed with that intense, Brocka-mandated quality of people struggling furiously to live, to hold on to every miserable erg of life. Roco in particular may be playing a symbol more than a fully realized character, but he does so with every nerve in his body alive, aware, straining to be unleashed. Catching sight of him for the first time onscreen (standing in the corner of Ongpin and Misericordia) you draw back, troubled by the animal fear in his eyes, the same time you're drawn in by their liquid sensitivity. A connection is made... ...a missing circuit closes, and the film comes to blazing life. You realize that the figures, the silhouettes you glimpse onscreen that stubbornly refuse to resolve into recognizable human beings are actually merely that--silhouettes, figurines. You stop looking for the psychological depth that isn't there and instead lean back to drink in the broad strokes, the panoramic view. The protagonist of the film, as it turns out, isn't Julio, or Ligaya, or the various other supporting characters; it's the city itself... As a portrait of one man's corruption and downfall, Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag leaves much to be desired. As a portrait of a city caught between the edges of heaven and hell the picture is unmatched--no other Filipino film looks or feels quite like it, ever or since.
