'Some Nights I Feel Like Walking' is a somber road trip film that sheds light on the scarcity of safe spaces for the queer community in the country. It's gorgeously shot, well cast, and told in a surrealist approach that catapults Petersen Vargas as a unique, modern voice in the Filipino film industry.
The movie follows the story of a group of young street hustlers who went on a trip from Manila to a provincial town to transport the corpse of their friend back to his family's home. It's 'Serbis,' but for twinks, meets 'Little Miss Sunshine' without the lightheartedness and comedy.
The first 20 minutes+ of the film is spent setting up the initial milieu or setting of the story. We find our protagonists, led by Uno (Jomari Angeles), roaming the dark underbelly of Manila streets. Manila is portrayed as seedy, mainly a place where prostitution is rampant and the police themselves are perpetrators of crimes. While charming, the protagonists are no angels – they steal, they fight, and they make a fool out of people.
The sleazy portrayal of Manila is further displayed in a series of sequences set inside a cinema house, where the film breathes life to (or exacerbates – depending on who you ask) an image of Recto, as well as Cubao, that some gay men might be familiar with: A place where gay patrons watch movies and engage in sexual activities, some with fellow moviegoers, and some with sex workers, which our protagonists are. It can be argued that the film’s depiction of the city unfairly sheds a negative light; However, it doesn't negate the fact that a version of what is portrayed in the film exists.
At the cinema is where Uno and the other lead protagonist Zion (Miguel Odron) get to know each other more intimately as they service a client in a three-way. Zion, who is later revealed as a rich teenage runaway, is a newbie in the profession. When we first meet him in the film, he is wounded, literally and figuratively. He has bruises on his face and body, and the look on his face makes you feel as if he's always about to break. Uno, on the other hand, is confident, composed. He appears to be already adept at the profession despite his young age, but unlike his friend Bayani (Argel Saycon), there is softness to his character, like the bleakness of Manila and his hustling hasn't roughened him up yet.
Uno and Zion are opposites, but on screen, their immediate attraction makes sense. Their chemistry is palpable. They immediately bond after the abovementioned encounter, but this is cut short when the film introduces us the conflict of the story: Uno's friend, Ge (Gold Aceron), overdosed after a client drugged him. In his dying breath, he wished for his body to be brought back to his hometown, to which Zion, Uno, and his friends set out to fulfill.
What transpires after this incident is a journey that what I can only describe as surreal. The protagonists take a bus on the way to Ge’s hometown while hiding his body in a bag. There is almost a fantasy-like quality to this trip that defies logic: The setting where Zion’s dream took place is veiled by the fog and it seemingly morphs into reality in the following sequences. Uno even verbalizes this saying, "Para tayong nasa panaginip (I feel like we're in a dream).” While wandering around, Uno and Zion also stumble upon a place called ‘Painawa,’ where transwomen and other queer individuals are partying, singing, and are all smiles. This appears to be a queer sanctuary, an oasis in the middle of nowhere, that looks and feels unreal.
When the group finally gets to Ge’s hometown, we meet his brother who turns out to be a church pastor. The dreamy atmosphere of the film suddenly turns nightmarish when he refuses to receive Ge’s corpse, saying his church and his town don't accept Ge's homosexuality. Ironically, when compared to the sequences that took place in Manila, the single scene in which the prejudiced pastor denounces Ge proves to be darker and more inhumane.
The above scene exemplifies the lack of acceptance of the society when it comes to queer individuals. It shows that even at our own homes or by our own families, queer people can be rejected, displaced, or unwelcome. Back to the initial Manila setting, while it can be brutal, the protagonists roam freely at night to some degree. Though it sucks that they can only do so in the dark. We also see Painawa, which is painted by the film as a queer haven, only thriving in the night as well. This is not a stretch, as the most popular queer spaces in the country can only be found at bars that operate at night.
Russell Adam Morton, the cinematographer behind the gorgeously shot 'In My Mother’s Skin,' captures the somber quality of the milieu in both the seedy Manila and the surreal and at times almost primal essence of Ge's hometown. While the story and setting of the film is reminiscent of its early 2000s indie counterparts, fortunately, it doesn't give the audience shaky camera work that induces nausea, presumably an attempt to give a 4D experience of the poverty-stricken milieu.
Overall, the film has enough depth and entertainment to keep moviegoers on their seats – the metaphorical elements are thought-provoking, and it is evenly paced by general movie standards. In terms of acting, the group of friends did well, but Angeles shines the most in his role as Uno. He is the light that sparks in the dreary moments of the film. You root for his character’s desire to escape a reality that, for the most part, forces him to stay in the dark, and at worst, wants him dead and hidden inside a bag.