"A sensitive portrayal of a vengeful daughter in the slums.”
A young woman in the slums seeks revenge in Insiang, the 1976 masterpiece of
Philippine’s renowned film-maker Lino Brocka. Considered as one of the best in
Philippine cinema, the film was screened at the Classics section in the 2015
Cannes Film Festival. Set in a troublesome political and socioeconomic
landscape, the melodramatic realism explores the pathos and weakness of a
society and its people agonized by poverty, violence and hopelessness.
Insiang opens
with a disturbing detail of how pigs are dressed for meat production in a dark,
squalid abattoir. After a heedless stab from Dado (Ruel Vernal) the matadero, the pitiful animal is then
bled out to death. Carcasses are then immersed in a vat of boiling water before
being prepared for cutting. Such gruesome scene, complete with the pig’s
gruelling outcry and spill of blood, simply foreshadows what is living like in
the slums of Tondo, a shantytown in Manila glamorized in the background by the
enigmatic Smokey Mountain, the dumping ground of the metropolis. In one of its
dingy makeshift dumps lives the titular heroine (Hilda Koronel) whose beauty
and innocence make her prey to both men and circumstances.
The movie then proceeds with clips of Tonia (Mona Lisa),
Insiang’s mother, going through her daily routine as a vendor in the marketplace.
After her husband’s departure, some of his relatives from the province, who
earlier ventured to the big city in search of job and opportunities, are still
staying in Tonia’s dilapidated house and she is bitter and angry about it.
Totally fed up, Tonia drives them off scandalously.
This leaves Insiang as the sole absorber of Tonia’s rage.
Tonia consistently criticizes her and calls her filthy names, probably because
a number of young men are attracted to Insiang. One of which is Bebot (Rez Cortez), a badass pretty boy who is only interested in de-flowering her.
Another is Narding (Marlon Ramirez), a storekeeper’s brother who is too timid
to express his feelings towards the maiden. To complete the picture, Dado, who
happens to be her mother’s lover, moves in with them.
Dado, known as a tough macho guy and a chronic gambler in
the neighborhood, soon becomes bored with his sexual exploits with Tonia and
beings eyeing Insiang. Fortunately for him, Dado rapes Insiang. The lady runs
to her boyfriend, Bebot, but his promise of elopement turns out to be a
one-night stand in a motel. Returning to dangerous waters, Insiang plots her
revenge by using the very people who hurt her.
Stories of revenge, particularly of a disadvantaged girl,
are nothing new in cinemas. They follow the same formula, employing similar
plot twists and turns. However, director Brocka masterfully reinvents such
banal material by placing the main characters in unforgiving cultural and
socio-economic framework that not only adds power and richness but only
reinforces all motivations, behaviours, and action-reaction dynamics. It’s a
closed trap and the only way out is by cold-bloodedly using whatever and
whoever is at hand.
Insiang is basically the center of the story, an innocent
girl lusted by men and hated by her mother, a hatred supposedly directed to her
ex-husband. She shares a vicious love-hate relationship with her mother Tonia.
Such destructive sense has been lingering from the very beginning, only further
aggravated and brought to the open by the arrival of Dado in their lives. Raped
by Dado, scorned by her mother, and rejected by her lover, Insiang only wants
to strike back, refusing an easier option via another man’s marriage proposal. As
it turns out, Insiang’s deceitful and deadly vengeance proves she can be as
lewd, scheming and malevolent as her mother, or even worse. The film’s final
act tries to tie the severed mother-daughter bond as Insiang gives her apology
to Tonia. In a more realistic fashion, the movie provides a heart-breaking
conclusion. While Tonia does not give her absolution, perhaps because she wants to make
her daughter believe she did the right thing, Insiang finds it in her heart
that she does not really want her mother’s forgiveness.
Director Brocka is also brutally honest in depicting the
endemic urban poverty in the Philippines, an unpleasant landscape shaped by the
country’s deeply-rooted cultural and political mechanics. He renders an intense
social realism, satirical at heart, mocking government’s apparent apathy and
society’s nonchalance to such economic situation. The portrayal is vivid and
specific like the opening bloodbath, the crowded streets with both adults and
children running around, the shanty clutters with its mosquito nets and grimy
kitchen wares, and even the absence of decent toilet room. The sounds and noise
are also spot-on such as the squeals of the butchered pigs and the endless
gossips and hateful words of idling neighbors. This socio-economic oppression breeds
anger, violence and desperation, further worsened by the community’s lack of
solid action to change the status quo. As Dado simply puts it, he is a man and
he is vulnerable to whatever presented to him.
Both Lisa and Koronel are stellar in their roles. While Lisa
effectively projects the resentments and fears of the insufferable Tonia,
Koronel gives an impressive performance as a young lady who transitioned from a
sweet, caring soul to a cunning femme fatale.
Insiang is a
sensitively genuine delineation of the life in the slums. With metaphorical
resonance, the heroine’s strife mirrors that of every individual whose every
action is dictated by his or her socioeconomic landscape.
Production
company: Cinemanila Corporation
Cast: Hilda
Koronel, Mona Liza, Ruel Verna, Rez Cortez, Marlon Ramirez
Director:Lino Brocka
Screenwriter:
Mario O’Hara, Lamberto E. Antonio
Producer: Ruby Tiong Tan
Director of photography: Conrado
Baltazar, F.S.C.
Editor: Augusto Salvador
Music: Minda D. Azarcon
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