TINIMBANG KA NGUNIT KULANG

That which is \"weighed and found wanting\" in the title of the film refers both to the aborted fetus in the story and to a man's conduct through life as it is evaluated at the last judgement. Along these two extremes, the film unfolds an edifying morality tale. A boy on the edge of manhood rejects his family. In turn, he is drawn to two persons on the fringes of his small-town society - a leper and Kuala, a woman traumatized by an unwanted abortion. He endeavours to bring the two together, gradually replacing his family with a new one, so to speak. He succeeds in this resolve, becoming - as it were, both a \"parent\" (for having fostered Kuala and the leper's relationship) and a \"child\" to the pair. In the end, Kuala is pregnant by the leper; and the film, which opens during Maytime festivities for the Virgin Mary, ends on Christmas day with a (re)birth.
Lino Brocka is driven by his own passion for images (to make them, to show them, to preserve them), by the provenance of these images (the stars of Philippine cinema), and by a traditional preoccupation with images: images that are offered, images that are venerated, corporeal images worthy of adoration, rituals and processions. He films them not to bring them to light, but to arrange them, to set them in motion within a story held together by an enigma. (Charles Tesson)