Manila in the Claws of Light 1975
Julio, a young fisherman from a provincial village, descends into social alienation as he arrives in Manila to search for his loved one.
Julio, a young fisherman from a provincial village, descends into social alienation as he arrives in Manila to search for his loved one.
A retired police sergeant has an unnatural stranglehold over his wife and daughter. His claustrophobically enclosed world is threatened when his daughter Mila finds herself pregnant and was forced to marry Noel. He attempts to extend his influence over his son-in-law, who resists; there is a confrontation.
Two filmmakers try to create a film venturing on the life of Jose Rizal. Before they do that, they try to investigate on the heroism of the Philippine national hero. Of particular focus is his supposed retraction of his views against the Roman Catholic Church during the Spanish regime in the Philippines which he expressed primarily through his two novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. The investigation was done mainly by "interviewing" key individuals in the life of Rizal such as his mother Teodora Alonso, his siblings Paciano, Trinidad, and Narcisa, his love interest and supposed wife Josephine Bracken, and the Jesuit priest who supposedly witnessed Rizal's retraction, Fr. Balaguer. Eventually, the two filmmakers would end up "interviewing" Rizal himself to get to the bottom of the issue.
During a return to his provincial home, a young man gets involved with a woman who is ultimately possessed by her sister's spirit, paving the way to revealing the painful truth about her unsolved disappearance.
A drama of the personal saga of a young man struggles with the contradictions within his own social class and the demands of a dysfunctional political family in the Philippine Islands.
Mike De Leon's entry into the omnibus "Southern Winds" where he follows Julio Madiaga into the new world of Filipino Entertainment.