1974 | 2h 6min | Directed by Lino Brocka / Written by Mario O’Hara and Lino Brocka
Synopsis
The son of a wealthy man, tiring of the shallowness of his pampered life and the hypocrisy of the town’s respected citizens, reaches out to the village outcasts.
Accolades
Winner: FAMAS – Best Picture, Director, Actor (Christopher de Leon), Actress (Lolita Rodriguez), Theme Song, Musical Score; URIAN – Dekada Award for decade’s ten best films
Availability Window
7pm, Nov 27 – 7pm, Dec 11
How to Watch
Click on the following link to access the film’s Eventive page: Weighed but Found Wanting. On this page, click on “Buy” or “Pre-order” (don’t worry, you will be able to screen film free of charge) and you will be prompted to enter an unlock code, which is (case sensitive):
siglo*de*epifania137a*z
If this is your first time using Eventive, you will be asked to register and create an account before you can proceed further.
Once you are registered and the purchase for the film is complete, you will receive an email confirmation with a direct link to watch the film.
Please note that once you start the film, you will have a 48-hour window within which to watch it in its entirety.
Curator’s Commentary
Weighed but Found Wanting is now widely regarded as the film that sparked the Second Golden Age of Philippine Cinema that took place from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. A huge commercial and critical success, it set off a phenomenal surge of interest in Philippine cinema as art and discourse, resulting in a major influx of college-educated artists and intellectuals into the film scene.
Decades later, Brocka continues to be seen as the most influential of all Philippine film directors. As Lav Diaz said at a Brocka retrospective in Vienna, “Lino is embedded in Philippine culture; you can’t escape him.” Martin Scorsese, introducing the world premiere of a restored Brocka film (Manila: In the Claws of Light) at the Cannes Film Festival, referred to Brocka as “a giant, towering filmmaker” whose films were “brave, extraordinary, powerful experiences.”
Brocka and his co-writer Mario O’Hara (who also plays the role of the leprous Berto opposite veteran actress Lolita Rodriguez as the madwoman Kuala), set and shot Tinimbang in the rural town where Brocka grew in humble circumstances as an illegitimate child. In panoramic fashion, the film depicts all strata of society, with its rituals, secrets, superstitions, youthful capers, prejudices, and acts of grace; and in the process examines the wide spectrum of love in all its youthful, jaded, repressed, profane, and transcendent aspects.
The film evinces early reflections of Brocka’s ardent revulsion at the corruption and authoritarianism of the Marcos dictatorship, something that he would increasingly and more openly express in later films and street activities. Self-producing this early indie film which shifts from realism to a theatrical mode at its concluding scene (the townspeople transformed into something like a mute, reflective Greek chorus), Brocka merged a gamut of veteran matinee idols, nascent film stars, and theatre actors into a novelistic vision of Philippine society and its dilemmas.
At its heart, Tinimbang traces the moral education of Junior (Christopher de Leon, in a spectacular debut) who increasingly tires of the hollowness of his privileged life and finds meaning in his friendship with the town’s outcasts. With its powerful, rambunctious artistry, the film finds renewed relevance at a time when calls for tolerance, inclusion, and compassion for the marginalized are shaking the world.
—Gil Quito
About the Director
“It is the supreme duty of the artist to investigate the truth, no matter what forces attempt to hide it. And then to report it to the people, to confront them with it, like a whiplash that will cause wounds but will free the mind.”
— Lino Brocka
Growing up in a rural town much like the one portrayed in Tinimbang, Brocka’s major means of escape were the movies and idle dreams of one day directing its divas like Lolita Rodriguez (who plays Kuala in Tinimbang).
He worked as a Mormon missionary in the Hawaiian leper colony of Molokai but finding himself unfit for the religious obedience involved, he returned to Manila where he made his way as a stage actor, director, and administrator.
He began his film career directing a series of melodramas, some of which have become classics (Santiago, Stardoom, Dipped in Gold). After Tinimbang, he went on to direct other masterworks, among them Manila: In the Claws of Light, Insiang, and My Country.
He co-founded and headed the Concerned Artists of the Philippines, which rallied against censorship and the Marcos dictatorship, and spent a stint in jail for his defiance and street activities. He was openly gay at a time when it was cause for persecution. His directing filmography consists of over 60 titles and he was posthumously declared National Artist of the Philippines.
Extras
Signed: Lino Brocka (Christian Blackwood, 1987, 1 hr 25 mins)
A documentary portrait of Brocka, featuring extensive, free-ranging interviews with the director.
Visions: Cinema – Film in the Philippines (Tony Rayns, 1983, 39 mins)
Documentary for British Channel Four TV on Philippine cinema, featuring interviews with leading film directors including Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, and Marilou Diaz-Abaya.
Lino Brocka Films Available at NYU Libraries and the New York Public Library:
- Manila in the Claws of Light (Lino Brocka, 1975)
- Insiang (Lino Brocka, 1976)
These two Brocka masterworks, now released in the US by Criterion, were restored by L’Immagine Ritrovata at the behest of Martin Scorsese and the World Cinema Fund.