Exploring the Works of Lino Brocka: 'Insiang' Review
by Isobelle Cruz [October 5, 2022]
ABOVE: Hilda Koronel as Insiang[Photo: The Film Foundation]
Today I got another look into Lino Brocka’s world, or what could also be referred to as the real Philippine society that is often glazed over in cinema. After my first encounter with Manila in the Claws of Light, I immediately went ahead and searched for other Brocka films that may serve the same rawness and awareness to lower-class Philippine society.
‘Insiang’ depicts the everyday life of Filipinos in the lower masses of the country around the years of 1976, when this film was first released and was later featured in numerous screening festivals and bagged awards from the Metro Manila Film Festival, one of them being for Best Cinematography—which is all well-deserved.
Although it is great to showcase a brighter side of the country on screen and is much appreciated, transparency and representation of the world beneath the rich Filipinos of Manila without glossing over its truths can be somewhat refreshing, as wrong as that may sound. This film was temporarily banned during the Marcos regime, because the then-dictator’s wife, Imelda Marcos, frowned upon its showcase of an image of Manila that was opposite to the one they were trying to sell to the world and keep to themselves, which is exactly why this film among others rebelliously produced during that era, is so important and deserve to be revisited.
[Photo: The NY Times]
The film starts off already brutally with shots set in a slaughterhouse where pigs are butchered and killed for products in the market, setting up what the audience would further witness in the piece: undiminished and gruesome representation and shots of the cruel and difficult parts of Philippine society.
INSIANG: Mahal kita, Bebot, kaya lang hindi ko gusto ginagawa mo sa akin sa loob ng sine.
BEBOT: Eh, lalaki ako, Isiang. Mapipigil ko ba ang sarili ko?
ABOVE: A conversation between Insiang and her boyfriend
The objectification of women is one of the main subjects that this film handles, aside from poverty and the sadly normalized manipulation of parents over their children, and of men over women. In today’s time, even with the overly encouraged activism to show truth and give justice to the country’s real struggles and debunking the richness only brought by corruption, producing a film like Brocka’s still brings a ton of risk for criticism, and even more so with another Marcos given power.
ABOVE: Mona Lisa and Hilda Koronel as mother and daughter [Photo: Letterboxd]
Renowned Filipina actress, Mona Lisa, did an unnerving performance as Tonya, the manipulative and controlling mother of Insiang, which helped set up the film’s tension. With these powerful characters surrounding Insiang and giving her barely any choice to live her own life and escape the madness of her world, Brocka makes me think of all the other people—mostly women—that live with the chokehold that our protagonist goes through.
Ngayong nakaganti ka na, siguro maligayang maligaya ka na.
ABOVE: Tonya to her daughter Insiang, after killing Dado
Unlike Manila in the Claws of Light, released only a year before this film, Insiang has more of a still and let-down ending. But nonetheless, Lino Brocka’s seventh production remains an important piece of Philippine cinema that deserves all the recognition and revisiting by the latest generations.
