Society often expects gay cinema to push buttons and politics. Brillante Mendoza÷Õ provocative debut, The Masseur (The Massahista), however, manages to push the envelope quietly with its emphasis on atmosphere, personal introspection, and realism.
In The Masseur, the sweet and seemingly naïve twenty year-old Iliac (newcomer Coco Martin) struggles to earn a living and win some affection within the seedy confines of a gay massage parlor in Manila. When his alcoholic father dies, Iliac must return to his family in the province of Pampanga for his father's funeral. Iliac's journey is more than geographical though. A coming of age tale, the film follows Iliac as he attempts to makes sense of his relationships and his conflicting responsibilities to work, family, and religion.
Iliac may have moved to Manila to avoid the poverty and patriarchy of his childhood, but his attempted escape seems to have failed. At the run-down massage parlor, the golden rule is "Duties, obligation, because it's obligation," according to the manager. In his parlor, every masseur must succumb to the every whim of the often despicable and demanding clientele. No "ifs," "ands," or "buts." So while Iliac's new home and his old one are miles away geographically, they are similarly oppressive.
Throughout the film, Mendoza juxtaposes scenes from the parlor with scenes from the funeral service in Pampanga, connecting homosexuality with religion. Shots of Iliac undressing his client are interspersed with images of Iliac dressing his dead father for his religious burial rites. In another montage, the sounds of women weeping from the funeral infiltrate the restrictive confines of the massage parlor's dark cubicles. The haunting play of sounds and images are intriguing, but fail to send any clear message about what religion means within the context of the massage parlor.
Is Mendoza saying that religion and the "sinful" activity of the parlor can coexist? Is he saying they're one and the same? And what does this mean in terms of Iliac's personal life? This is left to audience interpretation. Iliac performs the burial rites of his father respectfully with the exception of one provocative image of him cutting the cross from his father's rosary.
This ambiguity is only heightened by the prevailing silence of Iliac throughout the film. Abandoned by his father and distanced from his girlfriend, the lovelorn Iliac tries to win the affections of his only client—a romance novelist (Alan Paule) who not only initially rejects him, but doesn't even pay the tab. But Iliac never raises his voice. At most, he raises an eyebrow when no one is looking. Much of his emotion is revealed through vulnerable and nuanced expressions delivered by a convincing Coco Martin.
While these images certainly tug on the audience's emotions, they aren't enough to propel the film forward, at least in terms of the plot. The film is framed like a coming of age story, but Iliac only reaches some semblance of climactic development near the film's end. In fact, the climax is so abrupt that it's almost questionable as to whether or not Iliac has really grown up in the course of the 80 minute film.
But maybe this is a new kind of coming of age. Or a distinctly Filipino one. Before filming The Masseur, Mendoza interviewed a number of masseurs working in gay parlors and based Iliacfs character on their stories. Mendoza defended The Masseur as "a mirror of reality in an interview with The Manila Standard, and quite frankly, "reality" is something that The Masseur successfully captures. Any viewer exposed to the culture of the Philippines will recognize the accommodating and often frustrating subservience of the masseurs as something familiar— as something they witness everyday whether they're interacting with a waitress or a security guard at the mall. At the parlor, the masseurs address their clients as "po" (a formal term of respect for one's elders) and "sir," which becomes particularly disturbing given the often appalling personalities and attitudes of the brothelfs clientele. Perhaps, Mendoza is suggesting that it is this pervasive culture of service that keeps these adults in an almost infantile position.
The Masseur also succeeds in pushing the boundaries of Filipino queer cinema. The Philippines' most recent gay themed export, The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, provoked little conservative criticism and censorship because it focused solely on a boy's infatuation with another man. The Masseur, on the other hand, explicitly portrays male nudity and gay sex, harking back on traditions speared headed by legendary Filipino filmmaker Lino Brocka.
In 1986, Brocka released the gay film festival hit, Macho Dancer, about a young Filipino man who travels from his rural home to become a prostitute in Manila in order to support his family. The story is strikingly similar to Mendoza's debut. But while Macho Dancer was criticized by The New York Times for gratuitous scenes of men bathing one another to sentimental easy listening tunes, The Masseur portrays gay sexuality quite seriously and artfully. An aerial camera drifts from one tiny cubicle to the next as nude masseurs knead their clients' glistening bare backs, drawing a nice parallel between the literal and psychological claustrophobia of the massage parlor. In this space, nudity is not only sensual, but also an essential sign of vulnerability. Stripped of their clothing, these men are supposed to cater to the requests of their clientele.
The Masseur may ultimately lack suspense, but what it lacks in plot it makes up for in emotion, ambience, and intrigue. Its minimalism and nuanced performances ask viewers to think about the reality of these sex workers, raising issues beyond homosexuality and religion, and well, sometimes a proposal can be more moving than a protest.