MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Dancers’: Tale of Hustling, Hard Times

Mel Chionglo’s “Midnight Dancers” inevitably brings to mind the late Lino Brocka’s masterful “Macho Dancer” in that they both delve into the precarious lives of the young men who work as entertainers and prostitutes in Manila’s garish gay night-life district.

Both point up the economic hardships that drive such youths to sell themselves and reveal the widespread corruption and crime to which they become vulnerable. And along with considerable skin, they reveal the staunch, sustaining friendships that develop between the dancers.

For all such similarities between the two pictures, “Midnight Dancers” actually ends up more closely resembling the Luchino Visconti masterpiece “Rocco and His Brothers” in that it is first and foremost a family saga. It begins in classic fashion with the youngest son, Sonny (Lawrence David), arriving in Manila from his native Cebu, where the family has lost its land. A bright student and trophy-winning basketball player, Sonny has dropped out of school to go to work to help out his hard-pressed family. His older brothers Joel (Alex del Rosario) and Dennis (Gandong Cervantes) are already dancer-hustlers who work at the Club Exotica, and inevitably the handsome, naive Sonny joins them.

What is significant and distinctive here is that Chionglo and his perceptive writer, Ricardo Lee, (who co-wrote “Macho Dancer”) show the brothers as part of society and of a sturdy family structure. The family is held together by their loving mother (Perla Bautista), who accepts that her sons are macho dancers because that’s the way they can make the most money, but you feel that, not surprisingly, she’s into denial about their hustling.

Chionglo celebrates an unexpected acceptance of diversity. Joel, whose working name is Jimmy, is a devoted husband and father yet has a tender, longstanding relationship with a young, adoring client, Dave (Nonie Buencamino), who helps out the family financially from time to time.

Nobody is taken aback when Sonny’s first romance is with a drag performer (R.S. Francisco), who says he wouldn’t mind if Sonny had a “real” girlfriend because that would prove he’s a “real” man. Meanwhile, at the Club Exotica we also become acquainted with a a number of the other dancers, including one who has developed AIDS. (Oddly, both Brocka and Chionglo downplay the specter of AIDS). Like Spike Lee, Chionglo can create deceptively idyllic moments amid a dangerous world. The irony is that a gesture of hospitality to a street urchin on the part of the mother brings about tragedy.

Warm, sensitive, vital, humorous and emotion-charged, “Midnight Dancer” is a powerful urban epic on an increasingly grinding struggle for survival, beautifully photographed and scored in a surprisingly low-key fashion. Like “Macho Dancer,” it shows the dancers in action, on stage and in bed, forthrightly but discreetly. (There is, however, one quick glimpse of a stage routine that would surely get the film an NC-17 rather than an R, were the film to be submitted for rating). Chionglo, who inspires his cast to live rather than act their parts, looks to be a worthy successor to the courageous and talented Brocka, who was killed in a car accident in 1991.

* Unrated, but the Nuart is admitting adults only. Times guidelines: The film has much blunt language, some violence and much candor about male hustling but with the exception of one brief sequence is discreet in the presentation of sex.

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‘Midnight Dancers’

Lawrence David: Sonny

Alex del Rosario: Joel/Jimmy

Gandong Cervantes: Dennis/Raffy

Perla Bautista: The Mother

A First Run Features release of a Tangent Films International presentation. Director Mel Chionglo. Executive producer Richard Wong Tang. Screenplay by Ricardo Lee. Cinematographer George Tutanes. Editor Jess Navarro. Music Nonong Buenomino. Production designer Edgar Martin Littaua. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.

* Exclusively for one week at the Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 478-6379.