MANILA BY NIGHT

Philippines, 1981, 140 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Ishmael Bernal.

Manila by Night is considered a cult classic of Filipino cinema. It was directed by one of the significant directors, Israel Bernal, who made quite a number of films with social concerns, including Nunal Sa Tubag in 1976 and Himala in 1982. The print for this film has been restored, over 3600 hours of work.

In many of Bernal’s films, continuity is not a major concern. There is no dramatic presentation of causality from one sequence to another, but simply the presentation of characters and episodes for the audience to work out the connections.

The film shows the seamy side of Manila through a range of characters and their interactions. It was quite explicit in terms of sexuality and nudity at the time but, 20 years later, had it been made by directors such as Brillante Mendoza, like Serbis, it would have been much more explicit.

In retrospect, it is surprising to find such an amount of sex and sexuality on the screen in the Philippines at this time as well as considerable amount of drug use. There are also the gay themes which became more explicit over the decades.
• There is a respectable family in the suburbs, a fashionable house, roof being restored, the husband working in the courts, rather happy-go-lucky, telling jokes and more tolerant of his children until one of them becomes a drug addict. There is the haughty wife, memories of Imelda Marcos, who used to be a prostitute but, as she explains to another woman involved in prostitution, it is possible to change. She has married into money, has a number of children, fusses about the girls and their presentation as they go to school, concerned about her son, especially the oldest, Alex, who sings at a club but is warned off when there is an explosion in the club. Alex is involved with a young student who wants to marry him, gives her the gift of a pendant which he later demands back when he is short of money, becomes involved in the group with the gay men, sexual encounters with a number of women, especially a blind woman who works at a sauna. Eventually, there is a rather explosive seen where he is rebuked by his parents, especially his mother who goes on a smashing spree in her indignation. Later then she goes to try to find him and reconcile.
• There is a taxi driver who has been married and has children, is involved with a young woman who is seen each night coming from a hospital in nurse’s uniform. He also becomes involved with a young woman from the provinces who works as a waitress at a diner. He is also in a relationship with Sister Sharon, a dominating gay man. He juggles all these relationships but is stopped in his tracks by the young woman who loves him and has become pregnant. He is also suspicious of the nurse and follows her to find that she is a call girl. He also has to deal with the gay man.

• Sister Sharon is a middle-aged gay man, the middle of a coterie, seen at the restaurant when Alex sings, joking with the other men, at home with men, visited by the taxi driver. He also has a very strong scene where he rebukes Alex for his behaviour and his drug addiction.

• As regards the women, the nurse is very affectionate towards the taxi driver, even acting as mother to his children, she goes to hospital in a uniform, changes, goes to a centre where she is a sex hostess. She is murdered in the streets. She contrasts with the young waitress who becomes pregnant, goes to get the help of her parents, the nurse advising her to get an abortion, the patron of the diner setting her up for prostitution with Japanese visitors – but she is sick and runs away.

• There is also a lesbian character, tough, who wanders the streets, has a group of friends, including a blind woman who acts as an assistant in a sauna and also in prostitution – who becomes involved with Alex. The police are after the lesbian and there is a long running pursuit through the city.

The film shows the edges of society rather grimly – but, at the end, there is commentary on the future of most of the characters which is more positive, Alex going to rehabilitation, Sister Sharon getting religion, from of the writing a book, the pregnant girl married to a sympathetic doctor…

The film has to be considered in the context of its times, Filipino society at the beginning of the 1980s and, especially, the experience, very long in the 70s and 80s, of the Marcos dictatorship and Martial Law.