Manila in the Claws of Light (1975) on Netflix
Julio Madiaga arrives in Manila from Marinduque to find Ligaya Paraiso, the woman he is betrothed to, whom Mrs. Cruz took to the city for schooling. He works construction and befriends Atong.
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- Netflix4.5/5
- IMDb7.8/103,340 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Julio Madiaga is a young man from the island of Marinduque. He arrives in Manila in 1970 to find Ligaya Paraiso, the woman he is betrothed to. Mrs. Cruz brought Ligaya to Manila for schooling. Julio works in construction to survive, and he befriends a coworker, Atong, who was hired five weeks before. Another coworker tells him that city life is difficult without the income to enjoy urban comforts. Julio passes the corner of Ongpin and Misericordia and stares at a peculiar building from a distance.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Manila in the Claws of Light (1975)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Clodualdo del Mundo Jr.'s screenplay started as a class exercise: his professor, Nestor Torre, asked him to write a second script to fill the semester's spare time, so for a change he adapted a literary source and picked Edgardo Reyes' story, already a novel by then.
- Lino Brocka, fresh from acclaim for Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang, took the directing job to make a comment on urban poverty under the Marcos dictatorship, and added homosexual themes that were not in the original source.
- It is the only Philippine film included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and is consistently placed among the world's top 100 films of all time.
