Another of the foreign films that was just about to expire from my Youtube library that I had to make an express point of watching before it expired is Manila in the Claws of Light. (Youtube's library calls it Manila in the Claws of Neon, but every other source uses "light" instead of "neon".) As always, having watched it, now I can write up the obligatory post on the film.
Julio Madiaga (Rafael Roco, Jr.) is a laborer in Manila, in a time when the Philippines was poor enough that the construction laborers were the sort of men who migrated from the even poorer outlying islands to the big cities. Julio had been a fisherman living with his siblings after the death of their parents, something we see a bit of in flashbacks. But the flashbacks reveal the much bigger reason that Julio left for Manila.
Back on his home island, Julio had a girlfriend Ligaya (Hilda Koronel), whose family seems to be poor but not quite as poor as Julio's family. They also don't think a fisherman is a good choice of boyfriend for Ligaya. So when Mrs. Cruz shows up from Manila looking for people to work in the factories of Manila, Ligaya's mother signes her up. It'll be a chance for Ligaya to make a better living, possibly send some remittances home, and complete her education. Except that this isn't why Cruz came to a small village like this. Ligaya sent a couple of letters home, but then everything stopped.
So Julio went to Manila to look for Ligaya. Of course, having no idea where Ligaya is, Julio does the next best thing, which is to find where Ligaya sent the letter from and look for Mrs. Cruz is. Meanwhile, Julio is also learning that life as a construction worker isn't all that it's cracked up to be, as the contractors building the buildings are notoriously scammy and not paying the workers what they're really worth. Presumably there's such a glut of people coming in from the outlying regions that it's a buyers' market for labor.
Julio eventually spots Mrs. Cruz, and ultimately learns that Mrs. Cruz works for what we might call human traffickers, except that it's all domestic here and not crossing international borders. The young women are brought to Manila to brothels and service rich men, usually multiple men in one night. Ligaya's story is, however, a bit atypical in that she has a different sort of sadness from the other women. She was noticed by Ah Tek, a Filipino of Chinese descent who took a liking to Ligaya and protected Ligaya from the worst predations of the traffickers. There's a quid pro quo, of course, which is that Ligaya is supposed to marry him and live with him. But, Ah Tek is extremely possessive of Ligaya, and doesn't let her leave the house, which is why it's a bit of a shock when Julio is able to find Ligaya in a church. She wants to escape, but there's a catch, which is that Ah Tek knocked her up and keeps the baby with a nanny so that Ligaya could only escape without her baby.
Manila in the Claws of Light isn't a bad movie, although I have to say that it's overlong. It's a story that could have been told in 90 minutes but runs over two hours. It's also the sort of movie that Hollywood could never have made, in part because even the socially conscious Warner Bros. of the 1930s would have found it too depressing. That, and as poor as America was during the Depression, it was never this poor. I don't know if I'll be watching Manila in the Claws of Light again, but I'm glad I watched it once.
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