by
Mel
Chionglo
After
the international success of 1994's Midnight
Dancers, Mel Chionglo has returned to the
uniquely Filipino genre inaugurated by Lino Brocka's
Macho Dancer. His new film centres
on the experiences of Harry (Rodel Velayo), the son
of an American GI and a Filipina, who comes to Manila
and finds work as a stripper in a gay bar.
Ricky
Lee's gleefully melodramatic script takes Harry through
the full spectrum of life on the lowest rungs of the
ladder straight love, gay love, prostitution,
vengeance, forgiveness, redemption while sending
him on a search for his father, whom he believes has
killed his mother.
Macho
dancing, of course, is all about sexual display, but
Chionglo is more interested in convulsions of the
heart than in stirrings of the loins. His film was
made in the brief period of liberalism in Filipino
censorship a window which has already closed.
Tony
Rayns
