A young fisherman from a provincial village arrives in the capital on a quest to track down his girlfriend, who was lured there with the promise of work and hasn’t been heard from since. In the meantime, he takes a low-wage job at a construction site and witnesses life on the streets, where death strikes without warning, corruption and exploitation are commonplace, and protests hint at escalating civil unrest. Mixing visceral, documentary-like realism with the narrative focus of Hollywood noir and melodrama, the film is a howl of anguish from one of the most celebrated figures in Philippine cinema.

(Lino Brocka, Philippines, Tagalog & English W/Eng subs, 125min, 1975)