Home is where hell is

It’s been called a masterpiece by no less than American director Martin Scorsese, and consistently named as the greatest Filipino film ever made by both foreign and local critics, but the truth is that many Filipinos have never seen or heard of it. Lino Brocka’s Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag flopped when it was first released in 1975. And although its reputation has only grown in the succeeding years since, it rests largely on the opinions of the privileged few (mostly Western writers and commentators) that have managed to see it either during its initial theatrical run, cable television reruns or bootleg copies. Which is ironic given that its makers, not least among them Brocka, screenwriter Clodualdo del Mundo Jr. and cinematographer/producer Mike de Leon, intended for it to be watched by a Filipino audience.

Based on the novel Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag by Edgardo Reyes, it is the story of Julio Madiaga (portrayed by Bembol Roco in his first starring movie role) who goes to Manila to look for his paramour Ligaya Paraiso (Hilda Koronel). With no money and only her few letters in his wallet, he searches the streets, following any thread of information to find her, and fighting at the same time to survive the ordeal. But of course, as the addition of the word “Maynila” in the film title suggests, there is much more on offer here than the fate of these lovers. It is the story of an entire city and its inhabitants. It depicts a society on the verge of collapse and on the edge of seeming upheaval. It is a portrait of the “Gates of Hell” so to speak. (As Lourd de Veyra has pointed out, we should forget Dan Brown and ban further screenings of this film instead if we’re so concerned about how our home turf is portrayed.)

The World Cinema Foundation, headed by Scorsese, has undertaken the difficult task of restoring the film. Working from the original negative, they collaborated closely with de Leon to clean it up and come up with a pristine-looking new print. It was premiered at the recent Cannes Film Festival alongside other restored classics such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour and Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor and was received with great acclaim. In his videotaped address preceding the screening, Scorsese said “Lino Brocka was one of the towering figures in international filmmaking. He was a giant in his own country, the Philippines. You could say that like Rainer Fassbender he remade his country’s cinema.” He also called Maynila “one of Brocka’s greatest films. A brave and truly extraordinary picture and a powerful emotional experience shot in the harshest conditions in the streets of Manila at the height of martial law during the Marcos regime.”

If the film remains relevant to us today though, it is not due to the circumstances that initially inspired its making, but rather the essential truths that it tells and the urgency it conveys in its telling. And even if much has changed all around since we walked alongside Julio Madiaga, it is still those neon signs that stand above us, indicting us for his fate.

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The restored version of Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag will be shown in SM cinemas starting Aug. 7.