|
Orpheus in the grinding metropolis, red lights on Misericordia Street. Gentrified towers have precarious foundations, the provincial fisherman (Bembol Roco) is but one of the proles collapsing from hunger by the wheelbarrow. Corruption is the norm, laborers have to buy their own wages with the money that's owed them, "it's like being fried in your own fat." From one exploitation of the body to another, lurid neon looms over the netherworld of male prostitution, an affable seasoned hustler plays guide. ("Call boy" is his preferred term, he chuckles at the alternative of "man-whore" in front of a Liz Taylor poster.) The protagonist endures all of this in his search for the missing girlfriend (Hilda Koronel), a shimmering pastoral emblem turned sallow urban captive. "Just don't let the crowd pull you in." City of Man's infernal side, chronicled in Lino Brocka's bracingly blunt, scabrously vivid, realism-into-expressionism manner. Slums are wooden planks over sludgy canals one moment and scorched craters the next, skyscrapers built to paper over the cracks of poverty are updates of Lang's futuristic Moloch. (Tumbling off the unfinished building, the aspiring crooner's contorted corpse is contemplated with a snap zoom and a cold burst of synthesizer.) The reunion of estranged lovers begins in church, continues at a matinee showing of Ray's King of Kings, culminates in a motel room with long-take arrangements of sweaty figures, white sheets and green walls. ("It was like living in a matchbox where no one could hear you even if you screamed," recalls the maiden in a traumatized incantation.) The fakir's way with pain is recommended by a pal bearing tragic news, the rage trembling mutely at the funeral is given voice via an abrupt cut to a street protest. "Join the struggle!" The ending revises that of Bicycle Thieves, no moppet to dissuade a vigilante mob here. With Lou Salvador Jr., Tommy Abuel, Jojo Abella, Pio De Castro III, Joonee Gamboa, Pancho Pelagio, Juling Bagabaldo, and Tommy Yap.
--- Fernando F. Croce |