Freedom as obedience and brotherhood as violence. Complementing Kisapmata’s horrific vision of a ruling, paternalistic family despot, Batch ’81 expands its critique to include tomorrow’s tyrants. Freshman Sid Lucero (Mark Gil, in his breakout performance), desperately wants to join the Alpha Kappa Omega fraternity. Over the course of a grueling initiation process, he goes through every humiliation to please his “masters” — even as their treatment veers into increasingly fascistic, cult-like territory. An urgent reaction to Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law rule at the time, Batch ’81 burns bright today as De Leon’s angriest and most direct film — asking hard questions about masculinity, indoctrination, free will and the banality of evil, most insidious when disguised as brotherhood, responsibility, or duty. In memory of Mike de Leon.