Lengthy running times have largely confined the films of Filipino director Lav Diaz to the festival circuit: His breakthrough “Evolution of a Filipino Family” was shot over 10 years and clocked in at over 10 hours, and subsequent features like “Melancholia” and “Norte, the End of History” followed suit. Diaz has been categorized as a practitioner of “slow cinema,” and this has made his work sound even more forbidding outside hardcore cinephile circles.
But “When the Waves Are Gone,” his current feature, is surprisingly approachable and engrossing, especially in its dynamic first third when we are introduced to our two protagonists: Hermes (John Lloyd Cruz), a cop and instructor at a police academy, and Primo (Ronnie Lazaro), a former cop who has just gotten out of jail after 10 years and is seeking vengeance against Hermes for helping to get him sentenced.
Hermes is known as a master investigator, and he has a...
But “When the Waves Are Gone,” his current feature, is surprisingly approachable and engrossing, especially in its dynamic first third when we are introduced to our two protagonists: Hermes (John Lloyd Cruz), a cop and instructor at a police academy, and Primo (Ronnie Lazaro), a former cop who has just gotten out of jail after 10 years and is seeking vengeance against Hermes for helping to get him sentenced.
Hermes is known as a master investigator, and he has a...
- 9/5/2022
- by Dan Callahan
- The Wrap
Known for his epic–and epically long–films that examine the woeful past and troubled present of the Philippines, Lav Diaz has established an unmistakable name for himself and become a staple at A-list film festivals worldwide over the last decade.
He was awarded the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlinale for his 8-hour opus A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery, the Golden Leopard at Locarno for the 5.5-hour From What Is Before, and won over Sam Mendes’ jury to take home the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2016 for The Woman Who Left.
His latest feature, The Halt (4 hours and 36 minutes in case anyone is keeping score), premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar in Cannes earlier this year and screened recently at Filmfest Hamburg. It’s set in 2034, when volcanic eruptions have plunged Southeast Asia into darkness and the Philippines is ruled by a ruthless...
He was awarded the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlinale for his 8-hour opus A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery, the Golden Leopard at Locarno for the 5.5-hour From What Is Before, and won over Sam Mendes’ jury to take home the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2016 for The Woman Who Left.
His latest feature, The Halt (4 hours and 36 minutes in case anyone is keeping score), premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar in Cannes earlier this year and screened recently at Filmfest Hamburg. It’s set in 2034, when volcanic eruptions have plunged Southeast Asia into darkness and the Philippines is ruled by a ruthless...
- 10/17/2019
- by Zhuo-Ning Su
- The Film Stage
“These are my friends. And this is a tribute and a memoriam to them.”
The cinema of Filipino director Lav Diaz has always been about time, its essence as well as its way to define people and their surroundings. Considering the average length of one of his films varying between four to ten hours, Diaz has repeatedly abandoned what is commonly known as mainstream cinema and popular conceptions of what cinema is. For authors such as Sascha Westphal, for example, Diaz is a director in the same tradition as Andrei Tarkovsky or Béla Tarr, but then again, even the attempt of categorizing films like “Norte – The End of History” (2013) or “The Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” (2016) with the label “slow cinema” does not really fit with the kind of work Diaz has delivered throughout his career.
“Season of the Devil ” is screening at the 27th Art Film Fest Kosice
In a nutshell,...
The cinema of Filipino director Lav Diaz has always been about time, its essence as well as its way to define people and their surroundings. Considering the average length of one of his films varying between four to ten hours, Diaz has repeatedly abandoned what is commonly known as mainstream cinema and popular conceptions of what cinema is. For authors such as Sascha Westphal, for example, Diaz is a director in the same tradition as Andrei Tarkovsky or Béla Tarr, but then again, even the attempt of categorizing films like “Norte – The End of History” (2013) or “The Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” (2016) with the label “slow cinema” does not really fit with the kind of work Diaz has delivered throughout his career.
“Season of the Devil ” is screening at the 27th Art Film Fest Kosice
In a nutshell,...
- 6/16/2019
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
“These are my friends. And this is a tribute and a memoriam to them.”
The cinema of Filipino director Lav Diaz has always been about time, its essence as well as its way to define people and their surroundings. Considering the average length of one of his films varying between four to ten hours, Diaz has repeatedly abandoned what is commonly known as mainstream cinema and popular conceptions of what cinema is. For authors such as Sascha Westphal, for example, Diaz is a director in the same tradition as Andrei Tarkovsky or Béla Tarr, but then again, even the attempt of categorizing films like “Norte – The End of History” (2013) or “The Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” (2016) with the label “slow cinema” does not really fit with the kind of work Diaz has delivered throughout his career.
In a nutshell, “slow cinema” is most likely associated with a film’s running time,...
The cinema of Filipino director Lav Diaz has always been about time, its essence as well as its way to define people and their surroundings. Considering the average length of one of his films varying between four to ten hours, Diaz has repeatedly abandoned what is commonly known as mainstream cinema and popular conceptions of what cinema is. For authors such as Sascha Westphal, for example, Diaz is a director in the same tradition as Andrei Tarkovsky or Béla Tarr, but then again, even the attempt of categorizing films like “Norte – The End of History” (2013) or “The Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” (2016) with the label “slow cinema” does not really fit with the kind of work Diaz has delivered throughout his career.
In a nutshell, “slow cinema” is most likely associated with a film’s running time,...
- 11/25/2018
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Xyz Films, the U.S.-based sales agency specializing in genre films, has picked up international rights to Bradley Liew’s elevated horror movie “Motel Acacia.” Xyz will open it up to foreign distributors at this week’s American Film Marketin Santa Monica.
The film is set to start principal photography at the end of November in Philippines and Slovenia. It is targeting a 2019 release.
Malaysian-born, Philippines-based Liew saw his debut feature “Singing in Graveyards” premier at the Venice Film Festival’s Critics Week in 2016. It went on to 30 festivals and won awards in Malaysia and Kolkata.
Set in a fictional snowy U.S., the film is about a young Filipino man who is groomed by his tyrannical Caucasian father to take over a voyeuristic sex motel with a bed that eats men and impregnates women. The screenplay was co-written by Liew and producer Bianca Balbuena, who was last year...
The film is set to start principal photography at the end of November in Philippines and Slovenia. It is targeting a 2019 release.
Malaysian-born, Philippines-based Liew saw his debut feature “Singing in Graveyards” premier at the Venice Film Festival’s Critics Week in 2016. It went on to 30 festivals and won awards in Malaysia and Kolkata.
Set in a fictional snowy U.S., the film is about a young Filipino man who is groomed by his tyrannical Caucasian father to take over a voyeuristic sex motel with a bed that eats men and impregnates women. The screenplay was co-written by Liew and producer Bianca Balbuena, who was last year...
- 11/2/2018
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
“These are my friends. And this is a tribute and a memoriam to them.”
The cinema of Filipino director Lav Diaz has always been about time, its essence as well as its way to define people and their surroundings. Considering the average length of one of his films varying between four to ten hours, Diaz has repeatedly abandoned what is commonly known as mainstream cinema and popular conceptions of what cinema is. For authors such as Sascha Westphal, for example, Diaz is a director in the same tradition as Andrei Tarkovsky or Béla Tarr, but then again, even the attempt of categorizing films like “Norte – The End of History” (2013) or “The Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” (2016) with the label “slow cinema” does not really fit with the kind of work Diaz has delivered throughout his career.
In a nutshell, “slow cinema” is most likely associated with a film’s running time,...
The cinema of Filipino director Lav Diaz has always been about time, its essence as well as its way to define people and their surroundings. Considering the average length of one of his films varying between four to ten hours, Diaz has repeatedly abandoned what is commonly known as mainstream cinema and popular conceptions of what cinema is. For authors such as Sascha Westphal, for example, Diaz is a director in the same tradition as Andrei Tarkovsky or Béla Tarr, but then again, even the attempt of categorizing films like “Norte – The End of History” (2013) or “The Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” (2016) with the label “slow cinema” does not really fit with the kind of work Diaz has delivered throughout his career.
In a nutshell, “slow cinema” is most likely associated with a film’s running time,...
- 5/24/2018
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Crime & Punishment: Diaz’s Latest Epic Examines the Banality of Evil
For those accustomed to the cinema of Lav Diaz, the four hour running time of his latest opus, Norte, the End of History, seems conservatively trim by comparison. But for those uninitiated, this is an excellent place to start. Basically, Diaz’s narrative displaces Dostoevsky’s Crime & Punishment to the Philippines, further examining the moral suffering of his Raskolnikov figure by denying societal sanctioned consequences, exacerbated by the fact that another man takes the fall for his actions. Truth and meaning, the sacred and profane, society and the family—all are philosophical notions discussed figuratively and literally in the frameworks of Diaz’s latest, but not to the radical effect that this may imply. Instead, the banality of life and the dreadful, sometimes excruciating passage of time devours all.
Fabian (Sid Lucero), is an increasingly angry young man who...
For those accustomed to the cinema of Lav Diaz, the four hour running time of his latest opus, Norte, the End of History, seems conservatively trim by comparison. But for those uninitiated, this is an excellent place to start. Basically, Diaz’s narrative displaces Dostoevsky’s Crime & Punishment to the Philippines, further examining the moral suffering of his Raskolnikov figure by denying societal sanctioned consequences, exacerbated by the fact that another man takes the fall for his actions. Truth and meaning, the sacred and profane, society and the family—all are philosophical notions discussed figuratively and literally in the frameworks of Diaz’s latest, but not to the radical effect that this may imply. Instead, the banality of life and the dreadful, sometimes excruciating passage of time devours all.
Fabian (Sid Lucero), is an increasingly angry young man who...
- 6/25/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.