Blu-ray, DVD Release: Manila in the Claws of Light

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: June 12, 2018
Price: DVD $20.52, Blu-ray $27.37
Studio: Criterion

Lino Brocka (Insiang) broke through to international acclaim with  the mystery-drama Manila in the Claws of Light, a candid portrait of 1970s Manila and the second film in the director’s turn to more serious-minded filmmaking after building a career on mainstream films he described as “soaps.”

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, Manila in the Claws of Light is a howl of anguish from one of the most celebrated figures in Philippine cinema.

Features on Criterion’s Blu-ray and DVD incarnations of the film include the following:

* New 4K digital restoration by the Film Development Council of the Philippines and Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata, in association with The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, LVN, Cinema Artists Philippines, and cinematographer Mike De Leon, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
* Introduction by filmmaker Martin Scorsese
* Signed: Lino Brocka, a 1987 documentary about the director by Christian Blackwood
* “Manila” . . . A Filipino Film, a 1975 documentary about the making of the film, featuring Brocka and actors Hilda Koronel and Rafael Roco Jr.
* New piece with critic, filmmaker, and festival programmer Tony Rayns
* New English subtitle translation
* An essay by film scholar José B. Capino