Daring Filipinos Not To Look Away.(International Edition)(the film, Kinatay, portrays life of underclass)

Byline: Jessica Zafra

Brillante Mendoza's film Kinatay (Slaughtered) is so grim and gruesome that it didn't even divide audiences and critics when it screened at Cannes last month; it united them in hatred and disgust. Shot on film and video, the Philippine director's latest offering is about a young police cadet who finds himself participating in the grisly murder of a prostitute. Stark and unrelenting, it presents torture, rape and mutilation in a manner reminiscent of snuff movies. Viewers booed it and reviewers described it as "horrible"; the American critic Roger Ebert pronounced it the worst film ever to screen at the festival.

The furor only grew after Mendoza won the festival's best-director award. Jury member Nuri Bilge Ceylan called it "one of the most powerful, original films in the competition." For all its nastiness, Kinatay is a fiercely moral condemnation of corruption, brutality and indifference. Filipinos felt deeply conflicted; on the one hand, the prize represented an honor for their country. Yet it was for a film that showed the Philippines in the worst possible light. Indeed, some of the most violent reactions came from Mendoza's own compatriots, who criticized him as an unworthy successor to Lino Brocka, the late director whose powerful melodramas about the oppressed but noble poor won Philippine cinema notice in the 1970s and '80s.

Mendoza shrugged off the outcry. "My intention with Kinatay was to slowly bring the audience into the van and take them along to witness a monstrous crime---which happens, you can't deny," he says. "I think I managed to manipulate the audience without their being aware of it. They get trapped in the film. That's why it angered many viewers. They say, 'You trapped us. You didn't give us a choice'."

The 48-year-old filmmaker has never shied away from difficult subjects. He made his first film, Masahista (The Masseur), about the local sex trade, when he was 45. Since then, he has quickly compensated ...