Documentary and the Cinema Noir of Raya Martin and Aldolfo Alix Jr’s “Manila”
- Tom White
- Sep 7, 2024
- 11 min read
Updated: Aug 6
by Tom White
Fig. 1. Manila (Martin & Alix Jr., 2017) [Film]. Bicycle Pictures and MJM Productions. Screenshot from Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/manilamovie.
Anyone who has spent any time in Southeast Asia will be familiar with streets drenched in the humid grime of tropical heat. The opening sequence of “Manila” draws us into these streets with the dark chiaroscuro of a hyper urban city at night, presented to us in black & white, reminiscent of classic cinematic noir. People doze at home and at work, sleeping when they can. The camera cuts to a woman counting money, then cuts again to another struggling to control sobs and cries. The camera cuts and we see another woman turn to face us, and we realise she is blind. This is the street, the market, the life of the sprawling metropolis that is Manila. This is a very tangible place. There is nothing of the stage set and the Hollywood back lot here. Is what we see in this footage documentary evidence? Some, yes. Yet who are these people who have been singled out and presented to us, these women? They are observed by the camera, by the audience, but are intimately presented. We are watching a film, so these are performers. We know where we are, but we do not yet know what we are about to witness. There is a story here about to unfold, but we do not yet know what part each of these women will play. How will they navigate this very real setting in which they will perform?
Fig. 2. Manila (Martin & Alix Jr., 2017) [Film]. Bicycle Pictures and MJM Productions. Screenshot from Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/manilamovie.
Throughout these opening scenes, a soundtrack of languid jazz plays, further overlaying the fiction, reminding us again that this is cinema. The soundtrack rises in intensity as we approach a police checkpoint, filmed as if we are following the point of view of the driver or the passenger in a car. Is this staged, or not? It’s hard to tell. The first-person camera is shaky, handheld, raw. Documentary style. Before the police have a chance to stop the filming, to ask for the camera to be put away, the scene quickly fades to black, cutting to a scene depicting a police raid on a health spa, presumably due to the illicit nature of activities happening behind the façade. This scene, however, is now clearly dramatised narrative fiction. The inclusion of a video journalist accompanying the raid acts as a proxy for us, the audience. We do not see the raid through the lens of a documentarian, as we did in the approach to the police checkpoint, but instead as an audience outside of the proscenium arch, here to be entertained by a movie. The boundaries are blurring now. This raid is something that happens, but what we are watching is staged, a re-enactment of the real. A chase scene follows this raid, ending in an exaggerated slow-motion arrest. Devoid of diegetic audio, the woman’s cries of protest at being caught are replaced by a wailing jazz trumpet. As the woman from the health spa is arrested, the character of William (played by Piolo Pascual) who has also run from the scene of the raid escapes capture to be framed and perfectly lit, revealing him as the hero - or perhaps the anti-hero - of this unfolding tale.
Fig. 3 - 4. Manila (Martin & Alix Jr., 2017) [Film]. Bicycle Pictures and MJM Productions. Screenshot from Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/manilamovie.
The tone is therefore set for us in Raya Martin and Adolfo Alix Jr.'s portmanteau film "Manila" (2009). The film pays homage to Lino Brocka's “Jaguar” and Ishmael Bernal's “Manila By Night”, reimagining the plot of both films, split into the two halves of “Manila”. This is hybrid cinema, blending elements of narrative fiction with documentary-style observational filmmaking. The carefully composed character studies tell us this is narrative drama, while the observed city scenes tell us this is a story grounded in reality, the overlapping audio tying both of these together. We know this is going to be a story of the ordinary lives of working-class Filipinos, their lives depicted on screen reflecting the socio-political landscape of the Philippines.
Observational filmmaking is a style characterised by its fly-on-the-wall approach, aiming to present reality as it unfolds with minimal interference from the filmmaker. This style, rooted in the direct cinema and cinéma vérité movements of the 1960s is characterised by a non-intrusive camera, long takes, and an emphasis on everyday life. The degree to which the subject and the audience is unaware of or ignores the camera’s presence distinguishes these terms, though they are often used interchangeably. As documentary has increasingly borrowed techniques from the cinema of narrative fiction, and vice versa, a blurring of styles has characterised these supposedly separate genres. Occasionally, as in “Manila” we have an integration of these different approaches and methods. In “Manila”, the film’s fictional characters emerge, sometimes literally, from the bustling reality of the everyday.
Fig. 5. Manila (Martin & Alix Jr., 2017) [Film]. Bicycle Pictures and MJM Productions. Screenshot from Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/manilamovie.
While often in discussing cinema, the focus is on the visual, the audio can and does also play a part. The switching of diegetic and non diegetic audio, the dialogue, the manipulation of sound all contribute to the medium. Early on in “Manila” we follow William as he takes a drink from a water pump, washing his face, allowing the water to run over him, the sound of which is manipulated, dissolving into a noisy sizzle, as if boiled instantly from the heat of the tropics, the heat of William’s skin, the ‘heat’ of the police chase.
Cinema is almost uniquely positioned to allow all these elements to cohere. In his essay "The Cinema of Poetry," Paolo Pasolini argued that film has a unique linguistic system, much like poetry, which employs a form of language that is rich in metaphor, symbolism, and non-linear narrative structures. Pasolini’s concept of the "cinematic language" emphasises the expressive potential of images, editing, and sound, which can create meaning in ways that are both direct and abstract. Pasolini also introduces the idea of the "free indirect subjective," a technique that blends the perspectives of the filmmaker and the characters, creating a subjective reality that engages the viewer on a deeper emotional and psychological level.
Pasolini writes that:
‘The fundamental characteristic of the “free indirect subjective” is therefore not of a linguistic nature, but of a stylistic one. It can be defined as an interior monologue without its conceptual and philosophic element, which as such is abstract.
This implies, theoretically at least, that the “free indirect subjective” in cinema is endowed with a very flexible stylistic possibility; that it also liberates the expressive possibilities stifled by traditional narrative conventions, by a sort of return to their origins, which extends even to rediscovering in the technical means of cinema their original oniric, barbaric, irregular, aggressive, visionary qualities. It is the “free indirect subjective” which establishes the possible tradition of a “technical language of poetry” in cinema.’
Both Raya Martin and Adolfo Alix Jr make use of this audio-visual cinematic language to carefully craft the film's thematic concerns and emotional impact. “Manila'' not only features observational, documentary modes of filmmaking, and dramatic, theatrical staging but also varied camera angles, slow motion visuals, fades and dissolves, diegetic and non diegetic audio, the lighting and framing of characters, and the use of social symbolism to reveal dynamics of faith, class, and interpersonal relationships. It is filmmaking of the most engaging, revealing and stimulating kind.
This is particularly prevalent in the first half of “Manila”, as William is revealed to be a drug addict, struggling to navigate the broken relationships in his life. Director Raya Martin deftly wields this language of cinema to bring us into William’s world, and the Manila he inhabits. The final sequence of this segment echoes the beginning with a blend of observational filmmaking and a dramatic close up. This time, however, the return of the jazz trumpet accompanies a camera focusing on William, rather than on the women we now know are part of his life, and the observed scenes depict the bustle of a city waking up, starting their day and swallowing the tragedy of these characters in their myriad comings and goings.
Fig. 6 - 7. Manila (Martin & Alix Jr., 2017) [Film]. Bicycle Pictures and MJM Productions. Screenshot from Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/manilamovie.
The second segment, directed by Adolfo Alix Jr., similarly opens with a montage of observed scenes and staged drama. This half centers on Philip (also played by Pascual), a bodyguard who becomes embroiled in the dangerous underworld of a Manila where politics and gangsterism coexist and overlap.
Fig. 8 - 9. Manila (Martin & Alix Jr., 2017) [Film]. Bicycle Pictures and MJM Productions. Screenshot from Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/manilamovie.
Alix follows a more linear narrative with Philip than Raya Martin’s more impressionistic approach with William. While William drifts through events, with the filmmaking reflecting this distance, detachment and ultimate isolation, Philip is a clear protagonist, his actions driving the plot. While Alfredo Alix Jr’s filmmaking is more conventional, in this sense, as Philip’s story progresses we see again this leaning toward experimental cinema, blending the fictional with the real. Running from the scene of the crime around which Philip’s character arc pivots, we are shown again that chiaroscuro Manila beset by poverty and grime. This sequence interrupts our view of Philip’s actions to reveal the world to which he belongs and to which his actions prevent him from escaping. Here, Alix and Martin mirror each other, and we see William and Philip as archetypes inhabiting the same world, both characters' expressions of the same shared reality, the same tragedy, creating a sense of continuity and interconnectedness between the two segments.
Fig. 10 - 11. Manila (Martin & Alix Jr., 2017) [Film]. Bicycle Pictures and MJM Productions. Screenshot from Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/manilamovie.
Ultimately, both William and Philip find themselves isolated and alone. William is estranged from family and friends due to his drug use, and Philip becomes a victim of arbitrary police violence, a curious spectacle for the dwellers of a vast rubbish dump in the heart of the city. As Alix’s segment moves inevitably toward its tragic conclusion, the world of fiction and the world of fact merge into each other, the framing of each scene placing us in the position of observer, unable to intervene in what we know must be the outcome. Philip’s actions have taken over, and now dictate the unfolding events. The banality and resigned melancholia with which these events are treated by the film’s other characters reveal to us that this is not an uncommon outcome. We - audience and characters alike - all know how this ends, because this is how it has ended before, and how it will end again. As the film’s finale approaches, a brief, almost throwaway comment by Philip about seeking refuge in Davao City is particularly telling, especially in hindsight. Davao has had a tumultuous history, and at the time when “Manila'' was filmed was run by then Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte’s controversial approach to law and order both as Mayor and as President was characterised by extrajudicial killings, corruption and violence, which Duterte has boasted of administering personally.
Elected to the presidency in 2016, Duterte's administration was marked by a brutal approach to governance, particularly in its so-called “war on drugs”. Duterte's presidency followed the same trajectory as his governance of Davao with a culture of impunity leading to widespread human rights abuses and a climate of fear and violence.
"Manila," resonates with the drug use, crime and retribution that has become synonymous with aspects of life in the Philippines. The film's portrayal of Manila as a city plagued by violence and corruption serves as a poignant reflection of the socio-political realities that would become infamous under Duterte's rule. The characters in "Manila" navigate a world where survival often necessitates moral compromise and where the line between victim and perpetrator is blurred.
That the world portrayed in “Manila” has become the norm for many is a thread through Patricia Evangelista’s book "Some People Need Killing". Going beyond the news headlines that brought international attention to extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, Evangelista provides a critical and harrowing examination of this state of violence, particularly under President Rodrigo Duterte's administration. Working for many years as an investigative journalist, Evangelista has highlighted how state-sanctioned violence against petty criminals, drug users, and gangsters fostered a culture of permissive violence that disproportionately affects the underclass. This dehumanization led to a state of affairs where violence was not only tolerated but encouraged as a tool for maintaining order.
Fig. 12. Manila (Martin & Alix Jr., 2017) [Film]. Bicycle Pictures and MJM Productions. Screenshot from Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/manilamovie.
Evangelista tells us that she wrote ‘[…] one day the man who would be president promised the deaths of his own citizens. The terrible became ordinary, to thundering applause. Night after night the gunshots echoed through the slums. Those stories also began with the ordinary. I woke up, said someone’s lover, and he wasn’t beside me. I was taking a bath, said someone’s mother, when I heard the shouting. I was at home, said someone’s daughter, when the cop kicked in the door and shot my father. I wrote down what I could, and while there were many who mourned, there were also many who read about the dead and said more should die.’
"Some People Need Killing" offers invaluable insights into the real-world implications of the themes explored in "Manila," making it an essential point of reference for understanding the socio-political context of the film, highlighting how the war on drugs has disproportionately targeted poor communities, where residents are more likely to be suspected of drug-related activities and thus more vulnerable to being targeted by police, vigilantes and criminal gangs. This systematic targeting has perpetuated cycles of poverty and violence, as families lose breadwinners and communities are left in a state of fear and instability. "Manila'' clearly reflects this grim reality through its characters and narrative.
Fig. 13 - 14. Manila (Martin & Alix Jr., 2017) [Film]. Bicycle Pictures and MJM Productions. Screenshot from Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/manilamovie.
That “Manila” is a retelling of two decades-old Filipino films, and was made several years before Dutarte’s presidency, and long before "Some People Need Killing” was published, is an indicator that the violence and disregard for the plight of a poverty-stricken underclass were already entrenched in parts of Filipino society. The film's protagonists, struggling with addiction and entangled in the criminal underworld, are emblematic of this. Their lives are marked by a constant threat of violence, whether from state forces, criminal elements, or their own internal battles.
“Manila” is then, not just a piece of fiction but a reflection of real-world issues. The black and white noir, the observational style and documentary-like aesthetics employed by Martin and Alix serve to heighten this sense of gritty realism and ground the film’s narrative in the actual socio-political context of the Philippines. Journalism such as Evangelista’s reporting reinforces the film’s message, illustrating that the brutality depicted on screen is not merely a narrative cinematic device but a lived experience for too many Filipinos.
Fig. 15. Manila (Martin & Alix Jr., 2017) [Film]. Bicycle Pictures and MJM Productions. Screenshot from Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/manilamovie.
Despite this, there is a measure of hope that the filmmakers of “Manila” bring to us. In a bizarre counterpoint to the themes explored through William and Philip’s narratives, the two black and white halves are separated by a colour sequence depicting Filipino film director and proponent of slow cinema Lav Diaz directing a romantic drama titled “City of Love”, over which the credits for “Manila” appear, all set to the music of Radioactive Sago Project and their pop jazz song “Mr. Pogi in Space”. As if this isn’t odd enough, the song is taken from “Environmentally Sound: A Select Anthology of Songs Inspired by the Earth”, a benefit album released in 2006, for WWF-Philippines. As a reminder that what we are watching is cinema, as an absurd contradistinction to the seriousness of the themes explored through “Manila”, and as a break in the narrative that also acts to tie the two halves of the film together, it is a curious intermission.
Equally, anyone sitting through the end credits of “Manila '' is rewarded with a short, humourous vignette about a man attempting to persuade a women to give their relationship another chance. It is as if the filmmakers are saying that amongst the crime and the pain and the poverty, there are also stories of love and laughter and romance. In the context of the Duterte regime's culture of violent retribution, "Manila'' takes on added significance, serving as a powerful critique of issues that continue to plague the Philippines. With these stylistic flourishes to continuously remind us that we are watching cinema, and the blending of narrative fiction with documentary aesthetics and observational filmmaking, Martin and Alix, and the cast and crew of “Manila'' have created a work rich in storytelling which also serves as a vital cultural document, capturing some of the complexities and contradictions of life in Manila and standing as a testament to the enduring power of cinema to illuminate, challenge, and inform. Among that gritty, humid cinema noir, there are lessons to be learned, even if we have not learned them yet.
August 2024
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