Italian Premiere | Restored Classics | Out Of Competition
Philippines, 1988/4K 2023, 134’, Filipino
Directed by: Lino Brocka
Screenplay: Amado Lacuesta, Ricardo Lee
Cinematography (color): Joe Tutanes
Editing: Ruben Natividad
Production Design: Benjie De Guzman
Music: Mon Del Rosario
Sound Supervision: Willy Islao
Executive Producer: Boy C. De Guia
Cast: Alan Paule, Jaclyn Jose, Daniel Fernando, Princess Punzalan, Timothy Diwa, Angelo Miguel, William Lorenzo
Date of First Release in Territory: January 18th, 1989
Macho Dancer is but one in Brocka’s lengthy filmography that works double time as a feast for the senses and a scathing criticism of the inequity in Philippine society. In the case of
Macho Dancer, Brocka uses sex work to tackle the confusion and desperation of such labor.
In
Macho Dancer, young Pol (Alan Paule in a breakthrough role) lives in Angeles, Pampanga, near the Clark U.S. Air Base. The presence of American servicemen has turned the city into a major hub for sex work. When the film opens, Pol is spending his last time with Larry, an American military personnel who is about to finish his tour of duty. It seems Larry has been Pol’s source of living. With him gone, Pol looks to Manila – echoes of Julio Madiaga in
Manila in the Claws of Light –
to work as an erotic performer and double-time as a call boy for the club’s clientele. Pol is fresh meat; patrons are immediately drawn to him, but so are new friends. He meets Noel (Daniel Fernando), who takes him to the strip club, the eponymous Mama Charlie’s (played by Joel Lamangan).
In the club, Brocka shows us the spectacle and the realities of sex work: male dancers displayed on stage, stroking their dicks, with the audience, made up of mostly white men, watching with rapt attention, eager to snap up their catch of the night. For the first time, Pol witnesses Noel and Dennis (William Lorenzo) perform “macho dancing,” an onstage version of an erotic shower. Here, Brocka shoots the performance with both eroticism and starkness: shots of the audience, from the back of the club, and as intimate as it can be without being gratuitous. We see more sequences of the shower performance in the movie, shot in the same manner (save for the finale). Brocka takes us close to the mundanities of erotic performance, as if saying, “Here, marvel at their bodies,” and then pulls the rug from under our feet in the next scene, revealing the socioeconomic and emotional toll that Pol and his friends often have on their shoulders. It’s just a job, as Noel explains earlier in the film. But a job also has its risks, some even deadly.
It is understandable how
Macho Dancer is often overlooked – one of many – in Brocka’s filmography. By the time Brocka made
Macho Dancer, he had already done his most critically acclaimed films: the quintessential depiction of Filipino urban decay,
Manila in the Claws of Light (1975), the gripping character study,
Insiang (1976), and the labor-focused activism,
Bayan Ko (1984), among many others.
Macho Dancer is a heady mixture of all these movies, but is so concerned with the images of hedonism, yet cut with the realities of sex labor, and presented without any judgment.
Macho Dancer isn’t perfect. But it remains an essential viewing in Brocka’s body of work. With standout performances by Paule, Fernando, and a young Jaclyn Jose,
Macho Dancer is a distillation of many of Brocka’s favorite themes wrapped in a sweaty, smoky package.
Lino Brocka
The premier Filipino auteur was also a theater director, screenwriter, and producer. His debut film was the family melodrama
Wanted Perfect Mother (1970). It would only take five years for Brocka to come out with
Manila in the Claws of Light, which is considered by many Filipino critics as the Best Filipino Film of All Time. His film
Insiang (1976) would become the first Filipino film to be screened at Cannes. Brocka lived an activist’s life and was an outspoken critic of the Philippine government during his time. He died in 1991.
Selected filmography
1970 – Wanted: Perfect Mother
1974 – Weighed but Found Wanting
1975 – Manila in the Claws of Light
1976 – Insiang
1980 – Bona
1984 – Bayan Ko
1991 – A Plea to God