Thursday, November 22, 2007

Manila street gangs: How to get out?


I went to see the award-winning Filipino movie Tribu by Jim Libiran in which you see the normal, impoverished, squeezed, tough life of Tondo through the eyes of a 10 year old boy. With him, we encounter the juvenile yet murderous leaders and members of various gangsta tribes, adolescent thugs and petty criminals whose past times are sex, drugs and their eloquently poetic street rap, delivered in their own unique tongue-twisting machine-gun style.

It is a disturbing movie and the good news is that it is not the typical movie ending with a "message of hope". The movie clearly shows how easy or common it is to join a gang but it is not showing how to get out. Is there a way out besides being killed?

The movie is very well filmed and asking members of six rival gangs to act together makes the production, as Jim Libiran said, "a tool for conflict resolution."

For people not familiar with Manila: such gangs are not on all streets here, and even Tondo has some better parts.





Video: Official trailer of Tribu.

Photo from Makati, Alliance Française de Manille, November 2007.

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5 Comments:

At November 23, 2007 at 10:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

great movie, indeed

 
At November 23, 2007 at 11:01 PM, Blogger brommel said...

yes, indeed but most people like to consume shitty soaps. Am so happy that movies such as Tribu is being made and produced in the Philippines

 
At November 24, 2007 at 2:18 PM, Blogger francesm said...

Too bad we're not the real German ambassador and his wife :-(

 
At November 24, 2007 at 8:26 PM, Blogger Sidney said...

I guess you got the special screening for the EU people.
I went to the screening with the common tao and the room for viewing the movie was a bit too small and over crowded.
Anyway a good movie (for the budget he got).

 
At November 25, 2007 at 1:19 PM, Blogger brommel said...

we saw the movie at the Alliance Française. It was crowded but Olivier who is running the Alliance assured me to show the movie again in 2 weeks. Check out the program.

The movie is a must and pls buy the film music. Keep on rapping and -- as a rule -- if VIPs come too late, they should be reduced to common folks like the all of us (first come, first served; too late, get the left overs (no seats).

 

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