Will Your Heart Beat Faster? (Mike De Leon, 1980)

Johnny Delgado in Will Your Heart Beat Faster?

Cast: Christopher De Leon, Charo Santos, Jay Ilagan, Sandy Andolong, Boboy Garrovillo, Johnny Delgado, Armida Siguion-Reyna, Leo Martinez, Moody Diaz, Joe Jardi, Danny Javier. Screenplay: Cloduado Del Mundo Jr., Raquel Villavicencio, Mike De Leon. Cinematography: Rody Lacap. Production design: Raquel Villavicencio. Film editing: Ike Jariego Jr. Music: Lorrie Ilustre. 

Comedy often doesn't translate well, and for most of us non-Filipino viewers, a great deal of Mike De Leon's romantic, satiric musical comedy Will Your Heart Beat Faster? gets lost in translation. There's a lot of business involving the attempt of a particularly inept member of the Japanese yakuza to smuggle drugs into the Philippines, involving a quartet of attractive young people who become his unwitting vehicle when he slips a cassette tape into the pocket of the hero, a pop star named Johnny (Christopher De Leon). Lots of mistaken identities and slapstick action ensue, especially when the Chinese decide to muscle in on the territory. But when everything comes together toward the end, the movie blossoms into a goofy, entertaining extravaganza involving nuns, priests, smugglers, cops, mysterious passageways, and who knows what else. It's definitely not politically correct -- I'm assuming that the "Japs" and "Chinks" of the subtitles are translations of equivalent slurs in the original Filipino language. Under the original title, Kakabakaba Ka Ba?, it was a big hit in its homeland, which has been no stranger to exploitation by its more powerful neighbors. 

Kisapmata (Mike De Leon, 1981)

Vic Silayan in Kisapmata

Cast: Vic Silayan, Charito Solis, Charo Santos, Jay Ilagan, Ruben Rustia, Aida Carmona. Screenplay: Clodualdo Del Mundo Jr., Raquel Villavicencio, Mike De Leon, based on an article by Nick Joaquin. Cinematography: Rody Lacap. Production design: Cesar Hernando. Film editing: Jess Navarro. Music: Lorrie Ilustre. 

Kisapmata begins as a straightforward domestic drama about an overbearing father, played with sinister roughness by Vic Silayan. Dadong, a retired police sergeant, is upset when his daughter, Mila (Charo Santos) announces that she's pregnant and wants to marry her co-worker, Noel (Jay Ilagan), but he seems to swallow his objections after Noel's widowed father, Peping (Ruben Rustia, agrees to a generous dowry and an elaborate wedding. But the nervousness of the bride and her mother, Dely (Charito Solis), signal to the audience that all is not well. Then, during the reception, after everyone dances together in a show of unity, Dely is suddenly taken ill. The honeymoon is off when Dely is rushed home and Dadong says that Mila must come help her mother recover. Mike De Leon deftly handles the transition from the original sense that Dadong has accepted and adjusted to the marriage to a growing awareness that dark secrets threaten his accommodation, not to mention the lives of the people under his control. Kisapmata means "in the wink of an eye," and the film's denouement, after Mila and Noel struggle to escape from Dadong's control, comes in exactly that manner. Based on a reporter's account of an actual incident, De Leon's movie gives us the experience of a conventional thriller, but leaves us pondering the deeper forces that drive the desire to exert control over other people. It has sometimes been interpreted as a veiled portrait of the authoritarian state represented by the Marcos regime in the Philippines. 

Batch '81 (Mike De Leon, 1982)

Ricky Sandico in Batch '81

Cast: Mark Gil, Sandy Andolong, Ward Luarca, Noel Trinidad, Ricky Sandico, Jimmy Javier, Rod Leido, Bing Pimentel, Dang Cecilio, Mike Arvisu, Vic Lima, Dodo Cabasal, Edwin Reyes. Screenplay: Clodualdo Del Mundo Jr., Raquel Villavicencio, Mike De Leon. Cinematography: Rody Lacap. Production design: Cesar Hernando. Film editing: Jess Navarro. Music: Lorrie Ilustre. 

Mike De Leon's Batch '81 is a scathing account of what some people will do to gain acceptance that goes well beyond the particular setting, a university in the Philippines during the Marcos era. Sid (Mark Gil), a pre-med student, decides to join the fraternity Alpha Kappa Omega, along with 14 other applicants who are put through a series of uncomfortable, embarrassing, and increasingly hazardous tests of their loyalty to the group. As the unpleasantness of the hazing increases, more and more of the young men drop out until half a dozen are left. Sid is the toughest and most determined of the lot, and even the deaths that occur along the way -- ignored by the authorities -- only strengthen his resolve and resistance. De Leon tells the story ironically, with music cues like a triumphant chorus set to the turn of Gaudeamus Igitur helping to turn it into a tale of heroic persistence. At one point, the fraternity brothers perform in a scene from the musical Cabaret against a backdrop of swastikas. At the end, a closeup of Sid's face, drained of humanity, suggests the toll that the experience of being forced into this sinister brotherhood has taken on him. That Batch '81 is designed as a satire on the authoritarian Marcos regime is evident, especially in the torture scene in which one of the candidates is strapped to a chair attached to electrodes and asked whether martial law was good for the Philippines -- a question cut from the film in its original release. With college fraternity misbehavior lately in the headlines, and an administration in this country that often behaves like a collection of fratboys, the movie feels more relevant than ever. 

Manila in the Claws of Light (Lino Brocka, 1975)

Bembol Roco in Manila in the Claws of Light

Cast: Bembol Roco, Hilda Koronel, Lou Salvador Jr., Joonee Gamboa, Pio De Castro III, Danilo Posadas, Joe Jardi, Spanky Manikan, Edipolo Erosido, Pancho Pelagio, Lily Gamboa Mendoza, Tommy Yap, Juling Bagabaldo. Screenplay: Clodualdo Del Mundo Jr., based on a novel by Edgardo Reyes. Cinematography: Mike De Leon, Clodualdo Del Mundo Jr. Film editing: Ike Jarlego Jr., Edgardo Jarlego. Music: Max Jocson.

The title, Manila in the Claws of Light (in which "Light" is sometimes translated as "Neon"), is enigmatic. But there's nothing enigmatic about this straightforwardly harrowing look at the working class in the Marcos-era Philippines. The protagonist, Julio (Bembol Roco), has left his village, where he was a fisherman, to search for his girlfriend, Ligaya (Hilda Koronel), who was lured away to Manila with other girls by a woman who called herself "Mrs. Cruz" and promised good factory jobs and schooling. When we first meet Julio, he's scrounging for work at construction sites, having been robbed of the money he brought with him to the city. The other workmen help Julio survive after he collapses from hunger on the first day, and their friendship and solidarity in the face of the bosses who routinely cheat them of their full pay help get him on his feet. In his spare time, he continues his search for Ligaya, having learned that she's been lured into prostitution and is now the mistress of Ah Tek, who runs an import-export business. Julio stakes out Ah Tek's business in Manila's Chinatown, hoping for a glimpse of Ligaya. Meanwhile, he endures unemployment with the help of his friends, and survives a bad period by working briefly in a male brothel. His eventual reunion with Ligaya is brief and tragic. The film provides a fascinating look at the underworld of a city that could stand for almost any other metropolis, and director Lino Brocka keeps it moving with a well-paced alternation between desperation and recovery until the shattering end. The cast is uniformly fine, and the realistic view of the city keeps the story from tilting into melodrama.