Weighed but Found Wanting
Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang
In this scathing, multi-awarded, newly 4K-restored 1974 drama – regarded by Lino Brocka as his “first novel” – an affluent teen disillusioned by privilege befriends two outcasts.
Junior is the only son of Cesar, a lawyer, a failed politician and the richest man in town. This wealth has afforded Junior an ultra-comfortable life – one he spends with his similarly well-off friends and girlfriend. After a series of upsetting discoveries, however, Junior distances himself from this privileged bubble, eventually finding solace in his friendships with leper Berto and ‘village idiot’ Kuala. But the teenager soon learns that beneath the strictures of small-town respectability lurks all manner of ruthlessness.
A pioneering work of the Second Golden Age of Philippine Cinema, set in the province where director Lino Brocka (Manila in the Claws of Light, MIFF 2013) grew up, Weighed but Found Wanting offers a contemporary twist on the biblical account of hubris, hypocrisy and judgement its title references. Released at the peak of Ferdinand Marcos’s ghastly martial-law regime, it was a critical and commercial success, winning six FAMAS Awards and launching the career of “King of Philippine Drama” Christopher de Leon, who debuted here alongside luminaries Eddie Garcia and Lolita Rodriguez. With echoes of Fellini, Bogdanovich and José Rizal’s magnum opus Noli Me Tángere, Brocka’s masterpiece champions empathy and anti-establishment principles during a period of large-scale repression; now, in one of the film’s first international screenings – this brand-new 4K restoration having recently premiered at Il Cinema Ritrovato – it can be discovered afresh.
“A seminal work in contemporary Philippine cinema … like a rock flung through a plate-glass window – a clarion call.” – Critic After Dark
Tickets
For information about the accessible services being offered at MIFF, please visit miff.com.au/access. If you require any access service, such as wheelchair/step-free access, for any MIFF session, please call 03 8660 4888 or email boxoffice@miff.com.au to book your ticket.
You might also like ...
In this Sundance-lauded debut, a young Filipina learns that subjugation and silence are par for the course at the golf club where she finds employment.
An adulterous love affair brings tragedy to a traditional village in Burkina Faso in Idrissa Ouedraogo’s masterful, Cannes-awarded fable, now restored in 4K.
Long out of circulation, this evocatively elliptical tale of Sapphic yearning in 1930s Shanghai – newly restored – has been hailed as a major rediscovery.