Lino Brocka’s 'Insiang' paints the horrific reality in the slums of Manila. This evocative work, which critics praised and analysed heavily, prides itself on being the first Filipino film screened at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. In 2022, it was once again shown at the Cinematheque Centre Manila for the ‘Pamanang Pelikula’ event. Here’s what we think about it
The year is 1976 and Manila is cloaked with a familiar grim. In Lino Brocka’s Insiang, we are ferried right in the heart of Tondo where squalor, poverty, and abuse thrive from one shanty to another. In this genuine melodrama, the city was stripped off of its alluring filters; no buildings were tall enough to cover the plight of women, children wander the streets naked, and a graceful death is the only reward waiting for those who are meek enough to turn a blind eye on their neighbours’ woes.
Right off the bat, Brocka takes us to a bloody slaughterhouse. Pigs squeal as they are hung on racks and hooks for butchers to stab, boil, and skin with no remorse. In this scene alone, we are given the impression that Insiang’s narrative runs on realism, one that is much like the situation of the country at the height of the Marcosian Martial Law.
Brocka’s audiences are no stranger to this kind of plot. In fact, the filmmaker’s past works expressed his disdain for the injustices against common Filipinos. Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag, which was released just a year earlier than Insiang, hovered over the difficulties of poverty-stricken Filipino workers under their oppressive capitalist bosses.
Once, he was quoted “Cinema was used to deflect the attention of the people from injustices, violation, and oppression. I, on the other hand, hold that cinema can be used to make people think, to make people remember.”
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Misery Meets Insiang
