Sex: Boatman and Scorpio Nights

Personally, I find bold movies and pornography boring. Of course, it’s easier to tell what bold movies are—which is any film that involves nudity and sex—from pornography. I am not entirely sure about what pornography really is, but I’m sure of one thing: it’s a big bore, and so are bold movies. A couple of people fornicating does not really make for intellectual stimulation, and I find myself unable to be entertained when I feel that something as basic and mundane as sex is involved. I would rather read a book.

One such boring film is “Scorpio Nights” by Peque Gallaga (1985). This is how the distribution of the movie was in the span of one and a half hours: 10% story in the first part, 80% percent of sex almost the whole time, and 10% of the story in the ending. One can tell the story in ten, maybe twenty minutes without the sex scenes. I suppose the point of the movie is sex—wanton and sinful, sweaty or wet with rain—in which case, the point was very well made. All kinds of kinky and fetishistic sex was explored, from voyeurism to pink mosquito nets, plastic raincoats, soap suds, and even necrophilia. “Scorpio Nights” was all about fornication but it was saved from being common pornography (I am using the word loosely here to mean  material with the sole intention of sexually exciting the audience) by the shockingly gruesome ending.

The denizens in that Manila compound were very interesting. There was the welder with his gay lover, the nubile young woman who’s just asking for it, and a couple other voyeurs adding life and color to the story set with Martial Law in the background. However, these are all just secondary to the film. The movie could have acquired more dimension if the Martial Law angle was further explored, the more human side of the student and the security guard’s wife was shown, and the compound’s denizens were given more involved roles. As the case is, these were ignored in favor of  mindless sex driven by unslakable and ridiculously blind libido. One could see that the student and the wife are brainless bodies who had no common sense left in them even to be afraid of their death in the hands of the trigger-happy security guard/husband.

On the other hand, “Boatman” by Tikoy Aguiluz (1984) showed more interest in telling a story than showing the sex. It was rational; it made sense. The ambition of a young man stuck in Pangasinan towing tourists along the river as a boatman and ending up in Manila as a torero (live show artist) is closer to reality than two adulterers having sex day and night without heed of the consequences. Felipe, the boatman, is more human. His character was well-developed as he made choices and resolved personal conflicts. His partner, Gigi, was depicted as a strong woman who speaks her mind and doesn’t take crap from anyone.

I actually liked “Boatman” because the story was sophisticated, rich, and very vivid. The characters were well-rounded and I also appreciated the fact that the woman, Gigi, had a brain as compared to the wife in “Scorpio Nights” who thinks with her vagina. The males in “Scorpio Nights” had no ambition but to copulate and get through the day while Felipe had high dreams and a way to attain them. Never mind that his penis was his best weapon. He almost made it.

One major similarity between the two films is how sex is closely intertwined with poverty. They both show that sex is a pastime of the poor, a way to forget their muddy and rusty surroundings every night. Poor people do not have television sets, much less books, so they try to find other means of entertainment with their bodies. Freedom, equality, three meals a day and a decent home comes at a cost—usually steep and unforgiving—but sex is free, after all. Unless, of course, the partner catches you.