‘Manila in the Claws of Light’ at MoMA Feb. 6-12

The Museum of Modern Art presents the recently restored version of Lino Brocka’s film classic, “Manila in the Claws of Light” (Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag) from February 6 to 12.

The MoMA presented the film last November to a sold-out crowd in the museum’s To Save and Project festival and they are pleased to present it once again in a weeklong run, according to a press statement from the Philippine Consulate.

Lino Brocka’s “Maynila” is a haunting, beautiful landmark of Filipino cinema. Thanks to French filmmaker Pierre Rissient, it was potentially saved from oblivion.

He writes, “There are undoubtedly a few people left who still remember that day in Cannes 1978 when rumors started circulating about a small, low-budget film from the Philippines. A ‘dirty’ film, as some claimed, once more proving Lu Xun correct when he observed that while some art might originate in the sewer, it can be so full of passion that it goes as deep as tragedy. And perhaps even further, because Lino was one of the most physical filmmakers that cinema has ever had. A true fireball, he moved insatiably from one set to rehearsals of ‘Larawan’ in Fort Santiago where he directed a very dedicated group of actors, then onto a TV set where he would shoot a TV show in addition to a film as good as ‘A Streetcar Named Desire.’

He possessed a remarkable vitality that was expressed fully in the large demonstrations he organized against Marcos’s regime. With the money he made with his commercial films he bought some sophisticated sound equipment that allowed him to cover the entire Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, Manila’s massive north to south transportation corridor. Lino knew all the arteries of this swarming city, and he penetrated them just as he penetrated the veins of the outcasts in his films. Sometimes a vein would crack open and bleed. And that blood oozed on the screen with ‘Insiang,’ ‘Jaguar,’ ‘Bona,’ ‘Bayan Ko,’ all of which were shown in Cannes. And then, just like that, he died, in a stupid, easily avoidable car accident…. Still, when you watch ‘Manila,’ you’ll be burned by a flame that never goes out.”

A pariah of the Marcos regime, Lino Brocka entrusted Rissient with the film’s original camera and sound negatives, and for more than three decades, the materials were safeguarded by the BFI National Archives. The film was digitally restored in 2013 by the World Cinema Foundation and the Film Development Council of the Philippines at Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with LVN, Cinema Artists Philippines and Miguel de Leon.