#demises. the only ones left are the sisters at that point. these poor women suffer a fucking lot after their baby brother's death

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

Y’all mind if I ramble about my OC bullshit on my tags?

#oc stuff #text #y'all i have had this text post on my draft for like 7 fucking hours so i have all the rights in the world to ramble as much as i can #y'all are my followers so i can tell y'all anything i want because why the fuck not #so the thing is this: the story ends in a fucking tragedy #and i mean the story before the other one #the one that focuses on the angsty lady knight and her adventures with her knight peers #because she becomes evil and shit like. she turns into a drastically different person. all hope is seemingly lost #she stays all alone after that. the only fucker she trusted her (handsome prince) fucking died #do princes die in fairy tales? i don't think that's common i thought of him as sort of a prince of a fairy tale but also like a cool and #charismatic dude y'know????? #but like yeah he does indeed die. did i mention that before? i don't think so and if i already have then oop- #nothing wrong with sharing that twice #and after his death a lot of fucking chaos happens #his father pretty much kills himself 3 years later and his mother dies from health complications that are very linked to both of their #demises. the only ones left are the sisters at that point. these poor women suffer a fucking lot after their baby brother's death #they take it upon themselves to keep his legacy alive as well as their parents's #cuz they loved that mf that's why they teased him so much #and the lady knight turned villain pretty much suffers from deep depression after that #she also thought she lost her daughter forever so that made it even worse for her #so like it gets real depressing after that. nothing is the same anymore #also this story is meant to somewhat reflect the '60s so that's why there's gonna be some.....decline. like in the '60s and '70s #the daughter is meant to represent the gen-x while her parents are the silent generation #so yeah it's depression all around fuck yeah #and she also takes a dude one year older than her daughter under her tutelage and her becomes a disciple/pupil of hers #he becomes an assassin basically. a weapon for her and her only #he also resembles her dead husband a bit so that is a huge coincidence in the universe

[its-thatching]

Poor love in an Earthly Inferno: An Analysis of Maynila, sa Kuko ng Liwanag

Maynila, sa kuko ng liwanag is a film about a man trying to search for his lost love in the big city of manila while going through tough times and experiencing the pains of being poor in the city.

The film shows how bad life was in the 70’s when Marcos was still on the throne ruling with an iron first over the people. The economic and political climate of that era was thoroughly reflected as the audience followed the arduous lives of Julio and the people who were close to him. During the 70s, there was a period of severe unrest in the Philippines, full of civilian protests and demonstrations against the tyrannical rule of Marcos. A lot of protesters were injured by the military as well.  Explicitly, the film depicts Julio’s desire to follow and save the love of his life from the unrelenting underbelly of Manila, a place that was commonly patterned after “the American dream” but, as we soon learn, was not as forgiving to dreamers as it was being depicted. Only after his arrival did he realize that city lifestyle requires so much for so little in return. His change from a hopeful, young swain who wanted to get his love back so they could finally live together in peace,  to a man who eventually became a victim of his unfortunate demise as an impoverished being, living only for survival and losing so many people along the way. Implicitly, it shows the exploitation of the poor as they are desperate to survive and earn money for them and their family. With each day barely earning enough to eat. 

The film is reflective of the society where we can be victims of circumstances that are out of our control and that from birth, our destinies are somehow set in stone--- if you were born poor, you will grow up poor. The system is rigged and doesn’t allow for growth, especially for the poor. For example, the construction site Julio used to work at participated in an organization wide scam where the construction workers were forced to buy their own earnings for a ten percent commission (called taiwan). Benny, one of Julio’s colleagues who had a dream to become a singer, died in a careless accident at work and was just swept under the rug without any consequences for the management. Atong, one of Julio’s friends in the construction site who offered him meals and lodging with his own family, got wrongly accused of stealing something in the workplace and met his demise under the hands of his fellow inmates. Perla, who was Atong’s sister, was forced to leave the place and sell her body for money. The film also shows that compassion is something the bourgeoisie lacks once they get into that place in society. Imo, Julio’s old friend from the site, escaped poverty by getting a business job.Once they saw each other again, it became clear that he forgot his past by being condescending toward the waitress in the canteen and telling the story of Atong’s demise and Perla’s story in such a nonchalant way. His ascent to the borgeous showed that while he escaped the life of an oppressed citizen, he just moved on as a complicit citizen to the oppressor. Another indication of this lesson in the film was when Pol was breaking the news of Ligaya’s unjust death to Julio in the canteen, the rich and the middle-class people’s laughs can be heard as the background. It was meant to show how people, once they escape the hands of poverty, may unconsciously turn a blind eye already to those who need help the most. 

The location, which is along the streets of  Binondo, plays a significant role in the film that seems straightforward on the surface, but is actually filled with symbolisms and allusions to the political and economic climate during the 70s. Ongpin is a historical street that got its namesake from a wealthy man who funded the Katipunan during the Spanish era. Meanwhile, Misericordia is a street that means pity in Latin. From the start, we see Julio  standing idly on the intersection of the two aforementioned streets. This could possibly symbolize that he is on the intersection of pity and insurrection. Pity is a feeling of despair and helplessness that stems from the suffering of others. This is an idle feeling. Insurrection requires action. This entails actively fighting to change an oppressive landscape that the oppressed are suffering from. I believe that Julio standing on the crossroads of these two streets shows the struggles of people who are living below the poverty line. Pity can inspire us to embrace the social nature of humans, but it is not enough to help others. Pity can serve as an intrinsic drive to change the state of a place. Now it can be surmised that pity and insurrection can be the two possible paths Julio may follow in order to find and keep Ligaya by his side again. Ligaya, Julio’s first and one true love, left their province to be educated in the Capital of the Philippines. Her sudden departure with Ms. Cruz’ jewelry left Julio yearning for her. Not long after, he followed her to the streets of Manila, where he had no choice but to earn a living through different low-paying jobs like construction work and prostitution. When he finally saw Ligaya in Manila, she was pregnant with her captor’s baby. She briefly worked as a prostitute to make ends meet but eventually met with a Chinese man named Ah-teng who, at first, promised to save her from the life of selling flesh and doing tricks, but who took her in essentially as a captive and a love slave in his house. Julio had  a choice on how to approach Ligaya: he could either wallow in self-pity and let the love of his life go, or revolt against the man who held Ligaya as a prisoner in his own house. In the end, Julio made a choice: he chose to avenge his beloved’s tragic although foreseeable fate: by killing the oppressor under the guise of the name Ah-tek, he stopped the cycle of abuse that Ah-teng could give to other women. However, Ah-tek is not the only man who yields this kind of desire for power. 

 Ligaya’s name itself could be an allegory for the unattainable dream of most Filipinos in this period: Ligaya Paraiso: meaning happiness in paradise. Julio’s devotion to finding Ligaya no matter what hardship comes in his way can embody our desire as Filipinos to try to reach the impossible. Ligaya was desecrated, used, and abused by men who didn’t value her beauty and humanity through paid sex work. She is seen merely as a commodity, something that money can buy. Ah-tek’s insistence to buy her and have her be constantly grateful for him, even treating him as a savior, or she’ll meet her demise, shows the conditions of life under the regime of the Marcoses. The former administration’s insistence of the masses to embrace the new society that they have built to benefit capitalists and those who are already in the top 1% of the country was a scam all along. In the end, the oppressed (Julio)’s resentment against the oppressors (ah-tek) who defiled something precious and reduced her to nothing but a hole to penetrate and throw away once done (Ligaya) ultimately led to a revolution which, sadly, also cost the oppressed’s life. The last scene where the camera panned to and focused on Julio’s face showed the last emotions running through Julio’s mind before his death: terror, most probably, but also anger to the oppressor and to those who are complicit in letting these oppressors take advantage of people like him, and sadness about the way things turned out for him and the people who cares about.

In terms of morality, I found it very amoral due to it never glorifying the struggles that people like julio and his friends experience. We say that normally filippino films glorify struggles to show that we filipinos are resilient beings.this film never used that route because it showed that its hard to become resilient when everything is against you. As for realism i find it more than realistic as it shows the struggles and extortion of the poor in manila during those times. Meanwhile, I say it has been very coherent because of its consistent story line and value it wants to portray towards the audience. Because throughout the movie it shows that it takes money to earn money and if you’re born poor you will struggle trying to go above the poverty line. Additionally, the film is somewhat complex when it comes to its storytelling. The audience are slowly plunged into the point of view of julio. Throughout his journey in trying to search for his missing lover, we get to experience the hardships and struggles that come hand-in-hand with trying to live in the underbelly of Manila, trying to barely live with just the bare minimum to survive each day. With this in mind, we start to fear the worst for Ligaya: if Julio himself is struggling to fend for himself during such a cruel time, what more for Ligaya?

 With certain scenes lightly hinting towards prostitution, we start to understand Julio’s anxiety about the state of his missing lover as he desperately searched and waited outside her last known location in the hopes that he would find her safe and alive. During the penultimate scene of the film, we find her safe and alive and in seemingly good condition. This brings relief to the audience and to Julio, who is glad to have finally found her alive. But all that hope is destroyed when Ligaya tells her experiences while traveling to Manila and the news that she already had three children with the people who had enslaved her. This subverts the audience’s expectation: thinking everything was alright and Ligaya was safe and has found her place in the city. Heartbroken but not deterred, Julio convinces Ligaya to run back home with him where they could be safe and start life anew. As Julio waited for Ligaya to escape the hands of Ah-tek, we already knew the worst had happened when she never came. In reality, it is extremely hard to escape a domestic abuser; the average attempts of women who tried to escape their abusers was 7 times.  I believe that Julio should’ve been more careful and helped her more by planning her escape thoroughly. As an audience member, we were led to a state of denial because we are used to romance movies with happy endings where the main lead would run off with the female co-star and have a peaceful and well-deserved end. This movie did not follow that convention, but later on in the movie it is confirmed that ligaya has died trying to escape. The demise of his lover prompted Julio to swear vengeance towards Ligaya's captors. In the end, during his darkest state he murdered the man responsible for Ligaya's death and, in turn, murdered himself.  I would say that the premise isn’t entirely original because this movie was created in an age of cinema  where movies would mostly show or depict the struggle of Filipinos during martial law. It was a time when creativity was limited due to the limited freedom of expression brought about by the Marcos administration. They had to find a medium where they could show and open the minds of Filipinos during that time by depicting the harsh reality around them. Most Filipino films during this period were used as propaganda vehicles against the system. One example of a film that was made in the same era is Insiang, where it also depicted life below the poverty line in Manila and a struggling female character whose dignity was stripped off of her like it meant nothing. However, I believe that Maynila, sa kuko ng liwanag is somewhat original when it comes to the ending. Not many movies would have their main character be brutally killed as the ending scene. The concept isn’t original; it has been done before I’m sure but it’s rarely used.

This story is one of the many windows to the past, it shows the way of thinking of people way back during those times and besides the upgrade in technology and fashion the poor still remain poor while the rich gets richer and everything is still the same as it was back then.

#oldmovies #filipino movie