The Masseur

The Masseur is a provocative new film from the Philippines. Twenty-year-old Iliac works at an all-male parlour in Manila, fighting for customers with the dozen or so other boys on offer. He performs the same ritual for every client: the undressing and the oil massage, prelude to the inevitable sexual transaction that follows. But one morning, Iliac learns his father has died. The customary rituals follow – traditions that must be respected and carried out in full view: wearing black, the widow sitting beside the deceased, the eldest son carrying the coffin to the cemetery, assisted by male relatives. While the sex scenes befit a narrative set in a massage parlour, the film never becomes a lurid exploitation piece. True, there is a palpable level of sexual tension but the masterful inter-cutting between the increasingly intimate massage and the funeral dramatise and compare two representations of duty: the ritual owed to the dead and that, hidden, which is owed to the client who has come to trade money for sexual intimacy.

Preceded by

Last Full Show

Dir: Mark Reyes, The Philippines, 2005, 35mm, 18 mins, Tagalog with English subtitles

A young boy and an older man learn a painful lesson about forbidden love.

Total Running Time: 98 mins

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AUCKLAND

Tue 30 May, 8.40pm, Village SKYCITY Cinemas Queen St

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