Review of Insiang (1976) by Noel V — 06 Oct 2011

"Insiang" is arguably Brocka's masterpiece--it's his most intense work, the intensity sustained from beginning almost to end. It has the best-structured screenplay of all his pictures (by Lamberto Antonio, based on the original television script by Mario O'Hara); it's also one of his most atypical, and atypical of even most other Filipino films.

The intensity and structure go together hand-in-hand; you might say that structure is the source of the film's intensity. The story is admirably compact, with only three significant characters (Dado, Pacing, and Insiang) in essentially a single setting (Insiang's home--there are scenes elsewhere, but they could also as easily be set at home), the events taking place in the span of a few days to a few weeks.

The film is comparable to Shakespeare's most elegantly plotted play, "Othello," except in "Insiang" the focus is less on Othello's downfall and more on Iago's creation.

"Insiang" is atypical of Brocka's work, in that it's unusually tight and coherent (look at Brocka's other films--"Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang" (You Were Judged and Found Wanting, 1974), and "Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag" (Manila in the Claws of Neon, 1975)--for examples of meandering, scattershot scripts). It's also the rare Brocka film that displays true ambiguity--by the end of the film, it's almost impossible to establish for certain who was good and who evil, who the raped and who the rapist (again, look at Brocka's other films, particularly the later ones--"Bayan Ko" (My Country, 1985) and "Orapronobis" (Fight for Us, 1989) for simplified notions of good and evil). You blame and sympathize with all three alike, dancing helplessly in an interlocked chain of lust and loathing.

The film is unique in another sense--Philippine cinema is dominated by the twin themes of love of mother and survival of the family; almost all Filipino films revolve around some aspect of either two. "Insiang" takes these two great, overarching themes and, with an unmatched ruthlessness, dashes them to the ground, shatters them, reveals them to be the fallacies that they really are. The film is saying: "there are no guarantees, not from family, not even from mother; if anything, the most painful betrayals are inflicted by mother and family. You are ultimately alone.".