PLOT: Lieutenant Hermes Papauran, one of the best investigators of the Philippines, is at a deep moral crossroad. As a member of the police forces, he is a first-hand witness of the murderous anti-drug campaign that his institution is implementing with dedication. The atrocities are corroding Hermes physically and spiritually, causing him a severe skin disease resulting from anxiety and guilt. As he tries to heal, a dark past haunts him and has eventually come back for a reckoning.Read More »
Lav Diaz
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Lav Diaz – Kapag wala nang mga alon AKA When the Waves Are Gone (2022)
2021-2030CrimeDramaLav DiazPhilippines -
Lav Diaz – Lahi, hayop AKA Genus Pan (2020) (HD)
2011-2020ArthouseLav DiazPhilippinesQuote:
Taking leave from their jobs at a gold mine, three workers journey to their home village on foot through the spectacular yet unforgiving wilderness of the mythical island of Hugaw. As time passes and their conversations intensify, buried histories emerge and a sense of psychosis invades the scene. As ever, Lav Diaz’s exquisitely subdued black-and-white images and patient rhythm lend a Brechtian register to the drama; almost always filmed from the same fixed distance, each scene is an immaculate tableau vivant. Behind the film’s folkloric façade, Diaz once again taps into the collective memory of defiant struggles against the tyranny of both contemporary Filipino society and colonial brutality, centred on the timeless image of men walking – one of the key traits of Pan.Read More » -
Lav Diaz – Pagsisiyasat sa gabing ayaw lumimot AKA An Investigation on the Night That Won’t Forget (2012)
Lav Diaz2011-2020ArthouseDocumentaryPhilippinesQuote:
Erwin Romulo, the best friend of the late film critic Alexis Tioseco, recalls the events after the critic and his girlfriend Nika Bohinc’s murder during a burglary in their home in Quezon City. Lav Diaz makes use of one long take to allow Romulo an uninterrupted narration of the events.Read More » -
Lav Diaz – Ang alitaptap AKA The Firefly (2013)
2011-2020ExperimentalLav DiazPhilippinesShort FilmA short film made for “Venezia 70 – Future Reloaded.”
The day will come
We shall set sail from the mysteries of mythologies
And i shall be singing hymns to set you free
All of the effort I put into 70 Hours Of Diaz and I somehow forgot that he had a short in Venice 70: Future Reloaded…Outside of experimental affair like Let Your Light Shine or Brakhage’s hand painted affair where the film is 100% dedicated to an aesthetic and that’s what the film must be judged on alone it’s hard to muster the same enthusiasm on a narrative level you would for a 77 second short that you would for say, a 9 hour film for example.
GrimsChild (letterboxd)Read More » -
Lav Diaz – Kagadanan sa banwaan ning mga engkanto AKA Death in the Land of Encantos (2007)
2001-2010ArthouseLav DiazPhilippinesQuote:
A Filipino poet hearkens back to his village after spending years in Europe. Horrified to discover that the community has been buried under landslides, he begins wandering through the countryside, reconnecting with friends, lovers and family members whose lives teeter on the brink of destruction.Read More » -
Lav Diaz – Batang West Side AKA West Side Avenue (2001)
Lav Diaz2001-2010ArthouseDramaPhilippinesThe first major epic in the oeuvre of Lav Diaz (b. 1958) is a powerful contemporary portrait of the Filipino diaspora in New York and New Jersey: A Filipino-born detective investigates the murder of Hanzel Harana, a Filipino teenager, and must plod along with tenacity to break through the wall of silence surrounding the boy’s death. The trail of the designer drug “shabu” runs through the film like a bloody trickle, but Diaz delegates the accounts of crime, domestic violence, and the discontent in the souls of his characters to the background for the most part, instead relying on the hypnotic portrait of a decaying life as a symbol of alienation from home. The more we learn about the protagonists, the more complex, intangible, and contradictory our image of them becomes.Read More »
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Lav Diaz – Historya ni Ha (2021)
Lav Diaz2021-2030ArthouseDramaPhilippinesJonathan Romney, Vienna IFF wrote:
A relatively concise example of Lav Diaz’s expansive essays on Filipino history and imagination, HISTORY OF HA is a period drama set in 1957, although Diaz is characteristically cavalier about authenticity, with modern wheelie suitcases visible and references to algorithms sprinkled across the dialogue. But the past is always visible in the present in his films, and vice versa. This is often expressed by the idea of living in the wake of something, in this case, the death of the Philippines’ then president Ramon Magsaysay in a plane crash.Read More » -
Lav Diaz – Hele sa hiwagang hapis AKA A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery (2016) (HD)
Lav Diaz2011-2020ArthouseDramaPhilippinesThe search for the body of Andres Bonifacio.
Clavis Films wrote:
A cinematographic fresco on the Philippine revolution against the Spanish colonial regime at the end of the 19th century. The film tells the story of several women, one of whom is in search of her husband kidnapped by the settlers. These damned souls roam a jungle of astonishing beauty. Like Bela Tarr, Lav Diaz is reinventing cinema here.Read More » -
Lav Diaz – Ang hupa AKA The Halt (2019)
2011-2020DramaLav DiazPhilippinesSci-FiQuote:
Madmen control Manila in 2034 after massive volcanic eruptions have plunged Southeast Asia into darkness.Read More »