Insiang is the only child of Tonya, a market vendor abandoned by her husband. Mother and daughter live in a slum shanty with the parasitic relatives of Tonya's husband. Tonya's "live-in" partner is Dado, a hoodlum who is also attracted to Insiang. Tonya is jealous of her daughter. Insiang starts to hate Tonya and Dado even more, when Dado stops Bebot, her boyfriend, from writing to her.
Dado rapes Insiang, but Tonya believes Dado's tale that Insiang seduced him. The desperate Insiang asks her boyfriend to run away with her. After she and Bebot make love in a cheap motel, Bebot leaves her. Disillusioned, Insiang returns to her mother who accepts her but is determined to prevent Insiang from "seducing" Dado again. With revenge in mind, Insiang yields to Dado's sexual advances, and manipulates him into mauling Bebot in a garbage dump. Meanwhile, Tonya grows more suspicious of her daughter and Dado. Insiang reveals her relationship with Dado and Tonya kills him.
Insiang shows the ugly but common social reality in the slums. Rivalry, vengeance and corruption are main themes shown as the daughter, raped by her mother's lover, plots her revenge, and undergoes a moral deterioration from naïve and innocent to cruel, immoral and malevolent. Brocka, in this gritty but candid depiction of life in the slums, shows how a young soul is destroyed by the place and by the people the place itself has destroyed.
Insiang with its excellent performances, received rave reviews during the 1976 Manila film Festival. Critics cited the power of Lino Brocka's characters to convey in silence aplethora of emotions with depth and intensity. As an entry in the Cannes Film Festival, Insiang earmed for Brocka recognition the international film community.
Awards: Manila Film Festival Award Winner for Best Actress (Koronel), Best Supporting Actress (Mona Lisa), Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences (FAMAS) Award Winner for Best Supporting Actress (Lisa), and the Gawad Urian Award Winner for Best Supporting Actor (Vernal). Nominations for Best Picture, Director, screenplay, actress, cinematography, editing and production design. The Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (Filipino Film Critics) voted the film as one of the best of the decade of the 1970s.
Cast:
Hilda Coronel
Mona Lisa
Ruel Vernal
Rez Cortez
Marlon Ramirez
PETA Kalinangan Ensemble
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