Boatman
– An erstwhile boatman wants to do a little more than paddle his own canoe in the town famed for its w..
An erstwhile boatman wants to do a little more than paddle his own canoe in the town famed for its waterfalls. He leaves the village of his roots for the city and lands a job as a live-sex actor called toro in street lingo derived from the Spanish term for bull. Quick successes in his newfound profession delude him into regarding that the measure of a man is in his trousers. He has a partner on stage and off. Despite her cynicism and tough veneer, she sees in him a way out of the slums and the red light district.
27 Jun 1985
Tagalog, English, Filipino
The first thing we see in Tikoy Aguiluz's Boatman is the gleaming revealed blade of a balisong (a switchblade knife made in the province of Batangas). A group of prepubescent boys line up to an old man carrying the blade and a stack of leaves. The bravest one presents himself as the first boy to be circumcized. Tikoy Aguiluz allows us to see the details of the ceremonial passage to manhood: the old man pulls the foreskin from the penis and attaches it to the implement before slicing it off; the kid then spits the chewed leaves before jumping into the river. Aguiluz cuts to the same river, and appearing from the river is Felipe (Ronnie Lazaro), presumably the brave kid many years later now grown into an ambitious boatman who delivers tourists from town to the waterfalls of Pagsanjan.
9 nominations.
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