Insiang is not an easy film to watch. It’s hard to look at, not because the sprawling slums of Manila itself are ugly– the scenes are excellently blocked, shot, and edited, actually– but because of the way poverty has further degraded the status of women in the area, with the lack of resources keeping them vulnerable to violence. It’s unrelenting. From the casual jokes made in the background, to the physical harm actually wielded against the title character, director Lino Brocka systematically outlines the way poverty has cut off Insiang’s options, being forced to rely on a resentful mother and lustful men. It makes for an unflattering, claustrophobic depiction of the capital, which is why it was temporarily banned from screening, but Insiang was a necessary, ugly portrait of what the then-administration allowed to flourish.

It’s a harrowing watch, but Insiang doesn’t revel in the pain that the women face– instead, the physical violence are mostly depicted off-screen, except of course that second-to-the-last moment that was quite cathartic.