The perfect noir
Mario O'Hara's Condemned (1984) is Aunor at her most baroque and noirish. O'Hara populates the streets of Ermita (the heart of Manila's sordid night life) with pimps, prostitutes, transvestites, with cruising straight and gay men and women; with couriers, snitches, corrupt cops, gang lords, bodyguards, killers. As in Lino Brocka's Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Neon, 1975) it's a vision of Manila as one of the lower circles of hell. But not a depressed hell, nor a hell where the inhabitants accept their fate with sad resignation-- this inferno crackles with the energy of the damned dancing their way from one torment to another, stabbing and shrieking and fornicating and, well, not giving a damn.
