English Title: Manila in the Claws of Light Original Title: Maynila: Sa mga kuko ng liwanag Year: 1975 Country: Philippines Language: Filipino, Tagalog, English Genre: Drama Director: Lino Brocka Writer: Clodualdo Del Mundo Jr. based on the novel by Edgardo Reyes Music: Max Jocson Cinematography: Mike De Leon Clodualdo Del Mundo Jr. Cast: Bembol Roco Hilda Koronel Tommy Abuel Lou Salvador Jr. Jojo Abella Pio De Castro III Lily Gamboa Mendoza Joonee Gamboa Joe Gruta Juling Bagabaldo Tommy Yap Rating: 7.8/10
The linchpin of Filipino cinema, Lino Brocka’s pièce de résistance has been received a well-deserved BluRay treatment, MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF LIGHT is a searing social critique told through the jeremiad of a young fishmonger from a provincial island, Julio Madiaga (the newcomer Roco purveys a deeply affecting performance as a new-in-town tenderfoot) arrives in the big city to search for his childhood sweetheart Ligaya (Koronel), who has been roped into shady prostitute ring from their hometown, only to be overcome by a society infested with moral turpitude and unspeakable vice, belonging to the lowest of the social rung, Julio is inexorably driven to a breaking point when he can only resort to the most radical method to express his fury and desperation, and his ultimate denouement is ominously preordained through the accretion of his violent impulse.
Brocka hones a critical eye in presenting the film’s urban jungle milieu, shot in actual loci: the harsh conditions of those construction workers, one of them, Atong (Salvador, Jr.) with whom Julio befriends, lives in the squalid shanty with his younger sister (Mendoza) and their bed-ridden father (a landowner expelled out of his own property by wealthy foreigners), adjacent to polluted water, believe it or not, he is in a well-off situation (before the sorry fate catches on with his family); a chock-a-block local market where bargains for goods soon sour into personal attacks and that particular building where Julio suspects Ligaya is interned by a Chinese-Filipino Ah-Tek (Yap), the rarely seen ringleader, and its neon-lit signboard.
His pittance is shortchanged by the sleazy honcho and dangled by the intrusive oldest profession, sacked mercilessly when he is no longer needed, Julio witnesses accidental death befalls on the construction site, the indignant fate befalls on Atong and his family, still, he is too wet behind the ears, succumbs to the skulduggery of a policeman imposter on the street. The crescendo of injustice is which lends this film its cachet and its undimmed relevance, the whole drama probes an unyielding peer into the miasma of unrelieved depravity (just to plumb how pandemic this kind of pathology can reach with a deplorable cri-de-coeur), mirrored through Julio’s nostalgic erstwhile memories (ultra-snappy edited), which we all but realize there is no way back.
An unexpected sortie in the rough trade virtually becomes the most benevolent segment among a concatenation of threnodies, where Julio reluctantly dips his toes with an epicene punter, which imbues a purely libidinous concern without any creeping malevolence, that is prevalent elsewhere. But, not everyone can find his feet in that line of business, the bar is quite high, actually. A non-judgmental take on the often pejoratively depicted subculture does flag up Brocka’s unflinching resolution to spark more social commentary than he would be allowed.
Eventually, a chance meeting (a rather oddly conceived occasion wanting more context) reunites the star-crossed lovers, and Hilda Koronel recounts Ligaya’s ordeal with palpable poignancy in the lengthy close-ups, only to be tritely weighed down by her inextricable maternal attachment, and spoils their final chance of a happier finale.
Upholstered with a perturbing score from Jocson, MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF LIGHT is as harrowing a story as one could envision, but under Brocka’s stylish execution, it brims with an urgency to provoke, to shock, to jolt viewers into condemnation, only if he could have curtailed his exasperating anti-China slant, viewed 40-odd years later.
（作者：奋斗的小猪，欢迎转发分享，未经授权，请勿转载。）
（2019北京电影节第七场，4月12日，中间影院，《马尼拉：在霓虹灯的魔爪下Manila in the Claws of Light》）
故事跟随从乡下来马尼拉寻找失联女友的青年胡立欧，穿梭在这座都市的各个角落。从建筑工地，到贫民窟，到杂货铺，到色情场所，到大街小巷，霓虹灯下这座忙碌的城市像是布下一张网，困住了胡立欧，也困住了挣扎在其中的所有人。
镜头下每一个在底层挣扎的人物都鲜活富有生命力：喜欢唱歌的本尼，住在贫民窟的阿东，一边做工一边读书的伊莫，一直帮助胡立欧寻找蕾盖亚的波尔，他们苟延残喘在这大都市下，虽然生活举步维艰，但仍然抱有希望，虽然这霓虹灯下的魔爪让他们心中愤怒，但到最后也仍然心存善念。工人被工地老板克扣工钱只能忍气吞声，阿东父亲被抢地的富豪打成半身不遂只能目光呆滞的躺在贫民窟，还有被警察抢走了钱包和蕾盖亚信件的胡立欧，他愤怒的拳头握紧又松开。在残酷的城市里，他们步步退让，却仍然逃不出这张网。
于是，当这些鲜活的人物，被一个个撕裂在观众面前，这座城市下所有的愤怒在积蓄。唱歌的本尼，在工地上摔死，他在马尼拉没有亲人，死之后没人认领尸体就被送到大学给医学院的学生解剖；给胡立欧提供住处的阿东，因为和工头的矛盾被轻易弄死在监狱，贫民窟的大火烧死了他的父亲，又把妹妹逼成了街头妓女；步步妥协的蕾盖亚没有被注射吗啡变成性奴，但最终也逃不出蔡特克的魔爪。在悲惨的生活面前，他们如同蝼蚁，被霓虹灯下看不见的魔爪轻易捏死。
最后轮到了胡立欧。所有积蓄的愤怒需要一个出口爆发。
最终，胡立欧也逃不出这张网，当他走进马尼拉的这张网时，命运就已经注定。
在走进中间影院之前，我已经知道这部电影在菲律宾电影史上的地位。但和所有观众一样，我还是被它的力量深深震撼。导演的镜头栩栩如生的刻画了70年代马尼拉的全貌，堪称菲律宾社会的百科全书。为了讲一个杀人事件，剖开整个事件发生的社会结构，用细腻的人物刻画构造出一张全景图，这简直是一部菲律宾版的《牯岭街少年杀人事件》。
《马尼拉：在霓虹灯的魔爪下》不仅是菲律宾电影史上最重量级的作品，也是整个亚洲电影史上难得的瑰宝。2019年的北影节，我把最高的评分和最响的掌声送给这部菲律宾电影，并记住这个两次提名戛纳金棕榈的大师，利诺·布罗卡。
Original Title: Maynila: Sa mga kuko ng liwanag
Year: 1975
Country: Philippines
Language: Filipino, Tagalog, English
Genre: Drama
Director: Lino Brocka
Writer: Clodualdo Del Mundo Jr.
based on the novel by Edgardo Reyes
Music: Max Jocson
Cinematography:
Mike De Leon
Clodualdo Del Mundo Jr.
Cast:
Bembol Roco
Hilda Koronel
Tommy Abuel
Lou Salvador Jr.
Jojo Abella
Pio De Castro III
Lily Gamboa Mendoza
Joonee Gamboa
Joe Gruta
Juling Bagabaldo
Tommy Yap
Rating: 7.8/10
The linchpin of Filipino cinema, Lino Brocka’s pièce de résistance has been received a well-deserved BluRay treatment, MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF LIGHT is a searing social critique told through the jeremiad of a young fishmonger from a provincial island, Julio Madiaga (the newcomer Roco purveys a deeply affecting performance as a new-in-town tenderfoot) arrives in the big city to search for his childhood sweetheart Ligaya (Koronel), who has been roped into shady prostitute ring from their hometown, only to be overcome by a society infested with moral turpitude and unspeakable vice, belonging to the lowest of the social rung, Julio is inexorably driven to a breaking point when he can only resort to the most radical method to express his fury and desperation, and his ultimate denouement is ominously preordained through the accretion of his violent impulse.
Brocka hones a critical eye in presenting the film’s urban jungle milieu, shot in actual loci: the harsh conditions of those construction workers, one of them, Atong (Salvador, Jr.) with whom Julio befriends, lives in the squalid shanty with his younger sister (Mendoza) and their bed-ridden father (a landowner expelled out of his own property by wealthy foreigners), adjacent to polluted water, believe it or not, he is in a well-off situation (before the sorry fate catches on with his family); a chock-a-block local market where bargains for goods soon sour into personal attacks and that particular building where Julio suspects Ligaya is interned by a Chinese-Filipino Ah-Tek (Yap), the rarely seen ringleader, and its neon-lit signboard.
His pittance is shortchanged by the sleazy honcho and dangled by the intrusive oldest profession, sacked mercilessly when he is no longer needed, Julio witnesses accidental death befalls on the construction site, the indignant fate befalls on Atong and his family, still, he is too wet behind the ears, succumbs to the skulduggery of a policeman imposter on the street. The crescendo of injustice is which lends this film its cachet and its undimmed relevance, the whole drama probes an unyielding peer into the miasma of unrelieved depravity (just to plumb how pandemic this kind of pathology can reach with a deplorable cri-de-coeur), mirrored through Julio’s nostalgic erstwhile memories (ultra-snappy edited), which we all but realize there is no way back.
An unexpected sortie in the rough trade virtually becomes the most benevolent segment among a concatenation of threnodies, where Julio reluctantly dips his toes with an epicene punter, which imbues a purely libidinous concern without any creeping malevolence, that is prevalent elsewhere. But, not everyone can find his feet in that line of business, the bar is quite high, actually. A non-judgmental take on the often pejoratively depicted subculture does flag up Brocka’s unflinching resolution to spark more social commentary than he would be allowed.
Eventually, a chance meeting (a rather oddly conceived occasion wanting more context) reunites the star-crossed lovers, and Hilda Koronel recounts Ligaya’s ordeal with palpable poignancy in the lengthy close-ups, only to be tritely weighed down by her inextricable maternal attachment, and spoils their final chance of a happier finale.
Upholstered with a perturbing score from Jocson, MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF LIGHT is as harrowing a story as one could envision, but under Brocka’s stylish execution, it brims with an urgency to provoke, to shock, to jolt viewers into condemnation, only if he could have curtailed his exasperating anti-China slant, viewed 40-odd years later.
男主是乡下到马尼拉的年轻小伙子，去工地应征，日薪两块五。
工头是典型坏人，扣克薪资（俚语称“台湾”，不知为何），做假帐（男主账面上日薪四块，多的被污掉）。
工地安全措施低劣，一名想当歌手的工人很容易就摔死了，留下被翻烂的歌本。
工人大多未受教育，男主只有小学毕业，是为了寻找被骗来马尼拉的女主而来，钱财被劫，才来做工。工人中秃头M上补校毕业，后成为白领。
大厦近完工时男主被裁，到工地认识的友人A处暂住。A住在贫民窟，家有瘫痪老父和妹妹，全家原是自耕农，后土地被土豪强占，土豪雇黑道枪击老父致残。
男主在市中心流浪，夜宿公园，被一基佬捡回家。看到这本以为男主会被奸，但基佬很有礼貌，只是煽动男主一同下海卖屁股。
男主卖了一回屁股后感到不堪，投奔友人B。两人同去工地找A，得知A因与工头冲突入狱，在狱中被打死。两人同去探望A之妹，后决定凑钱帮助她，不料贫民窟被火烧成平地，人不知去向。
男主在街头遇见拐卖女主的女人口贩子，和警察起冲突，原要给A妹的钱被警察抢去。后巧遇当上白领的M，得知A父被烧死，A妹沦入风尘。
男主在教堂遇见女主，原来她被卖给华人富翁作小妾，已生下一女婴。男主要求她带孩子一起远走高飞，女主害怕华人淫威。
男主在约定的时间地点没等到女主，在报纸社会版上看到她已死，疑为谋杀。
男主旁观葬礼后去找华人富翁，举刀刺杀之，被追捕，逃入死巷，惨叫一声，全片告终。
kc512：
杀人毫不手软。
DudeLebowski：
用简单的方式营造出东南亚特有的惊悚感，霓虹灯会吞没一切。
donnie：
《我是古巴》的剧情写实主义拍法，菲律宾著名电影，建议贾樟柯前来学习。
节南山：
很典型的社会批判电影，但是如果将矛头直指华人，是否多少有点民族主义？
果树：
不同的元素都太蜻蜓点水没能连贯，但沉郁的气氛倒是贯穿始终了，稍有失望但仍是值得一看的电影。
子夜无人：
无凭无据猜想一下赵德胤一定看过这部电影，可惜无论现实主义程度、表达的锋利性、还是视听的独到之处都远胜于他在距离40年后拍出来的《再见瓦城》。那些懵然无知闯进都市的男男女女，梦想全部破碎在霓虹光里，出卖着身体沦陷在无法回旋的境地。对于社会问题的归因非常粗暴单一，但恰恰是这种泄愤式的情绪最为逼真，从那种闷热的空气附着在男主角浑身上下的汗水开始，从他追捕扒手几乎掐死对方之后一直难以置信注视着自己双手的呆滞开始，关于他最终的爆发就已经确立。他没有走进义愤填膺但仍然和平的游行，他只剩下举起屠刀、谁也挽救不了的一意孤行。
DAY6的无人知晓场刊将于稍后释出，请大家拭目以待了。