No way out

B

"I was emotionally upset/charged/angry: although there's nothing good to say about the direction, cinematography and acting, the gripping story deserves a Golden Coconut." [Ex-Manila Man]

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Manila is home base for one of the world's livelier gay movie industries. Most of the time, the feature movies' lead character is a pretty straight young man trapped by circumstances in a melodramatic gay scenario. Occasionally, he's a handsome bisexual, as in No Way Out (Walang Kawala).

The 2008 thriller follows an unhappily married fisherman (Joaquin) whose lustful wife has returned from a labour contract in Dubai, eager to become pregnant. Although her outstanding breasts are thrust full-frontally frequently, or because they are, he rejects her and travels to Manila to look for his runaway orphaned neighbour and secret lover (Waldo). He'd headed, as Filipino country lads usually do in all circumstances, to the gay striptease bar where a village friend worked. Cue the usual handsome blank-faced go-go lads in bikinis undulating around a tiny stage, working under the captaincy of grossly over-made-up transvestite floor managers.

Flashbacks show us that Waldo was befriended by a loving, handsome, slightly older gay customer, but wouldn't play ball with him, preferring to be naively seduced by a sadistic, satanically handsome policeman. The bisexual ("macho gay") cop beats up his wife and imprisons young folk, to be sold in batches of ten males and ten females to a Sino-Filipino trafficker who ships them off by picturesque outrigger to sexual slavery in foreign lands.

Can Joaquin find Waldo? Easily, because the cop arrests him. Can Waldo be saved? Yes, but as we're in the Philippines, his rescue will cost the life of his lover. It will also involve the cop's illogically-faithful, brutally-battered wife being an illogically-treacherous kind heart. However, the envelope of gay Filipino melodramas is pushed notably in this movie, by a couple of long-drawn-out homosexual rapes of the country lads by the cop and his stage management of their sexual embraces.

Joel Lamangan, one of three credited story originators, is a prolific director; the latest count listed 76 titles, including TV series. He's had cameo acting roles in such gay film festival favourites as Lino Brocka's Macho Dancer (1988) and Mel Chionglo's Twilight Dancers (2006). They too exploited the bar scene, whereas Brillante Mendoza's The Masseur (Masahista) used massage parlours as its rationale for photographing handsome young men in minimal attire.

Lead actor Polo Ravales (born Paul Gruenberg, in Manila) has been a TV regular for a decade; his missing lover is played by Joseph Bitangcol, a younger TV actor. They cope well with strained dialogue, a lot of passionate wet kissing and very little nudity; Ravales' standard expression of pained blankness is understandable. Emilio Garcia, as the devilish psychologically disturbed cop, deservedly won two awards as best supporting actor.

Theses could be written about the socio-political ramifications and pretensions of gay Filipino movies, and they surely have been. This movie's cinematic fig leaf of worthiness is the screenplay's repeated reference, via TV and radio, to "disappeared" activists, in an apparent attempt to relate them to sexually trafficked youngsters. It's as good a reason as any for showing objects of gay movie-watchers' desire in melodramatic circumstances.