Of Filipino filmmaker Lino Brocka's later films, Bayan Ko is arguably the most courageous. It was made during the latter days of the Marcos administration, when dissent was at one's own risk. Brocka did, loudly and clearly, through Jose F. Lacaba's no-fat, no-nonsense, rigorously developed and brilliantly structured script, laced with only the thinnest trimmings of noir to disguise the politics from the censors. Brocka, through Lacaba's inexorable sense of logic, demonstrated how a man, cautious and not truly awakened politically, can still be snared by economic and social circumstance into a downward spiral of crime and violence. Cinematographer Conrado Baltazar gave the film a memorably gritty look, urban noir at its darkest. The film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival (Brocka had to smuggle the print out the country for the screening); its premiere brought worldwide attention to his country's situation, and caused the furious Marcos regime to revoke Brocka's citizenship.