Filipino director Brillante Mendoza may have the heart of the Dardennes or Pedro Costa, but neither the eye nor rigour of those European auteurs. His newest film Slingshot is 90 minutes of shrill, in-your-face squalor, and it looks as cheap as the lives it depicts. (If Dad smoking heroin with a baby in his arms isn’t disturbing enough, how about Dad ignoring the same baby while she eats her own feces?) Beginning with a nighttime police raid on a warren-like Manila slum, the film follows the denizens of this dilapidated shanty town as they fight, steal and bicker against the backdrop of a mayoral election. A hand-held video camera captures it all, but never rests long enough to convey any genuine drama—the entire film coasts along at the same relentless, rabid pitch. (JM)