Melancholia di lav Diaz

di Michele Faggi

Il cinema di lav diaz è un fiume in piena, i 450 minuti di Melancholia restituiscono un rapporto complesso con il concetto di durata, costituito da una serie di piani sequenza il film del regista filippino complica e disassembla il tempo del racconto con quello di una visione che non è semplicemente materializzazione del tempo nello spazio dell’inquadratura quanto accumulazione di punti di vista capaci di rivelare una relazione intima e allo stesso tempo storica con la cultura delle filippine. Se rimangono tracce di cinema documentario in Melancholia, queste emergono dall’ordito di relazioni che legano i personaggi del film, sempre in bilico tra verità e performance, simulazione e partecipazione. E’ un vortice che non punta verso il basso, ma è al contrario ricco di aperture; la tentazione è quella di considerare questa percezione del tempo come flusso lineare solo per la persistenza colossale e ipnotica delle inquadrature o al contrario di leggerla come un racconto a ritroso; il movimento è in verità molto più complesso e anche quando si riavvolge su se stesso aggiunge elementi centrifughi che non chiudono mai le possibilità della visione rilanciandola in avanti. Diaz ci presenta tre individui alla ricerca di se stessi e a poco a poco ci impedisce una completa immedesimazione allontanandosi dal loro ruolo, rivelandocelo da un angolatura ambigua situata tra il vero e il falso, stratificando una storia di dolore che esce continuamente dai confini della finzione e penetra forme di ricerca più intime. Una prostituta, una suora che raccoglie fondi per i poveri deambulando senza posa per le strade remote di Sagada minacciate dalla natura , un magnaccia, tre visioni estreme sulle filippine soggette ad improvvisa mutazione nel gioco di ruolo concepito da un regista sperimentale, un insegnante e una donna che non regge il peso emotivo della simulazione, uccidendosi. Il centro della ricerca è quello su due corpi rimossi, “missing” che a poco a poco erode tutti i piani del racconto e riconduce alla verità della performance, immersa in una relazione estrema, intima e dolorosa con la terra, la natura e il dolore. Diaz filma in video e in bianco e nero con pochissimi mezzi, microfonando gli ambienti con un approccio diretto senza cancellare le imperfezioni del suono causate dalle intemperie, ma al contrario accentuandole in primo piano proprio quando il rigore del tempo sembra restituirci uno sguardo immobile ed estenuante. Dopo le nove ore di Death in the land of Encantos, menzione speciale nella sezione Orizzonti a Venezia 64, Lav Diaz costruisce il suo cinema estenuante e d’impatto, potente e riflessivo; il ritorno alla terra natale del poeta Benjamin August nella terra distrutta dal tifone Reming viene quasi completamente interiorizzato nel processo di ricerca affrontato da Alberta, Julian e Rina in Melancholia; il titolo non è casuale e si riferisce a questa ricerca che costruisce un testo intimo e fortemente politico; nel parlare di Sagada, Diaz dice “…quando ci sono stato, per me tutto era tristezza; l’ambiente non ha offerto vero sollievo, ma ho avuto tempo per confrontarmi con questa depressione. In quel momento e in quel luogo ho compreso che non c’era una vera cura per la malinconia. Questa è la verità. Sai, ho letto Freud e, nel brano che dedica al lutto, dice che la libido è la cura per la malinconia. Uno studio offre l’uso clinico del suono e del movimento come strumenti psicologici per curarla. E, si, io ho provato tutto questo. La mia pratica del suonare la chitarra è fondata giusto sulla creazione di pattern sonori e di semplice rumore, mentre immagino movimenti, e lo faccio per curare me stesso da questa tristezza che mi sta uccidendo. Certo, la medicina moderna ha inventato il prozac, il litio e tutti questi prodotti chimici, e gli psichiatri, per bilanciare il triste mistero pieno di sofferenza che è la nostra esistenza, ma ci si risveglia sempre per scoprire che non c’è davvero cura. Alla fine, si deve affrontarla a modo proprio. Quindi si, Freud ha fallito…”

Ovvio e anche scontato, per chi si trovi a vivere questa esperienza visiva, riferirsi, anche superficialmente, al cinema di Straub-Huillet, a quello infinito di Bela Tarr, alla persistenza crudele del cinema di Pedro Costa, alle sculture temporali Tarkovskjane, alla storia selvaggia di Julio Bressane, in verità nel cinema di Lav Diaz c’è un movimento partecipativo e per improvvisa collisione, raggelante, che incolla i personaggi dentro una cornice naturale eccessiva nel suo uscire dai margini dello schermo, mentre percezione visiva e auditiva vengono travolte. Melancholia è stato concepito e sviluppato in un periodo di tempo piuttosto breve, considerando la sua durata; Diaz si è recato a Sagada senza sceneggiatura, senza storia, senza una mappa precisa del posto, da solo con i tre attori e la troupe ha penetrato il dolore e la solitudine del luogo, scrivendo di notte e sviluppando una ricerca che invece di procedere in avanti o riavvolgersi attorno ai segni della memoria, si infila nel non tempo di una percezione intima e solitaria.

Pubblicato il 8 settembre, 2008
In Venezia-65, nuove illusioni, orizzonti venezia 65, recensioni

Avenue of Broken Dreams

Batang West Side – Lav Diaz

By Etchie

"... it is the epic scope, the undaunted ambition, and the artistic integrity of Batang West Side that beacons the brave and
independent spirit that relentlessly ignites this new generation of Filipino filmmakers."
-- Francis "Oggs" Cruz

"A curiously oblique film that builds almost imperceptibly, Lav Diaz's five-hour "Batang West Side" -- at once deadly serious and howlingly absurd -- is a masterpiece."
-- Ronnie Scheib, Variety

Brutally frank and mercilessly honest, Lav Diaz’s Batang West Side (2001) is a searing indictment at the Filipino diaspora culture- -a culture of indifference and ignorance. Likewise, at the very shadow of it lies a more sinister superimposition that is practically the representation of our social cancer. As we realize whether the decision to leave justifies the necessity, cognizant of the eventual degradation of the Filipino morals and ideals, or are we simply a gathered bunch insensitive to all of it, deprived of perception by the lure of an erstwhile fantasy of a greener pasture?

Batang West Side starts out with a fatal shooting of a Filipino teenager, Hanzel Harana (Yul Servo), on a whiteout-drenched West Side Avenue in Jersey City. A Filipino-American detective, Juan Mijares (Joel Torre) is dispatched to the scene of the crime and starts a tooth and nails crusade to find out who killed the hapless youth. His investigation sends him to interview a cornucopia of characters–from Hanzel’s mother, Lolita (Gloria Diaz), Dolores, the girlfriend (Priscilla Almeda), the grandfather, Lolo Abdon (Ruben Pizon), to his hard-luck friends and even former “bosses”. Each has their own picture of what Hanzel’s life is before his carefree life is cut short on a cold pavement in a place he is not supposed to be. The film is not so much a police procedural than as a run-of-the-mill formulaic melodrama, but the true mystery reveals not the who but on the circumstances. It is not a crime-thriller where you are treated to a plethora of the conventional recipe that identifies it as one, rather transcending into an effective character sketch and at the same time portraying a situational image of a community of minorities struggling to find its lost identity.

Contemplative in its aesthetic and intrinsic interpretation, Lav Diaz deftly illustrates a young man’s gradual deconstruction as he helplessly wrestles through a familial dysfunction to the unavoidable immersion into a world of substance abuse. The social relevancy also indicates the necessity of the Filipino displacement as the ultimate truckstop to a life after poverty. Yet the film’s concrete lefthook lands a powerful punch towards the perennial predicament that afflicts the contemporary Filipino youth: shabu (or crystal meth–or as they casually call it, poor man’s cocaine). Diaz’s static camera shots construe a meditative interplay of the bleak snow-blanketed milieu and an individual disoriented by a profound shock, allowing us a kind of voyeuristic verisimilitude as we witness an inescapable and tragic transformation.

Unrestrained by obligations by a production studio contract, Lav Diaz exercises such a given liberty through this film, with a running time of five hours–a complete detachment from the Godardian experimentation of Burger Boys (1998) to the mainstream sensibilities of Serafin Geronimo: Kriminal ng Baryo Concepcion (1999) and Hubad sa Ilalim ng Buwan (2000). In Batang West Side, Diaz captures the nitty-gritty survivalist instincts of his migrant compatriots and expatriates alike, with its Darwinian kill-or-be-killed philosophy at heart, in the middle of the urban battlefield of a distant western city.

The dramatis personnae, who fundamentally supports the films’ near-fluid narrative, centers on Mijares. His own personal battles aside, likewise, he has a tendency to collapse, like Harana. He constantly dreams of his sick mother (played by Angel Aquino) who, at the beginning of the film, is in a state of coma, however he tends to avoid discussing it with his psychiatrist, frightened of opening up his true self and uncover skeletons tucked undisturbed in his closet. He harbors a terrible secret and as he does away with it in front of a documentary filmmaker’s camera near the end, we feel a sense of liberation. Not because he manages to release himself from the similar quicksand that has trapped and ultimately eaten up Hanzel Harana, but we are to discern a freedom from the nightmarish reality that is supposedly a prelude to a better dream.

There is Lolita, Hanzel’s mother, who escapes an impoverished life in the Islands–deserting a husband and four kids–and marries a paraplegic, trapped in her own mansion of riches. She brings Hanzel from the Philippines and prods him to live with her, her husband and her lover, Bartolo (Arthur Acuna)–the personification of malevolence in the film, suffocating with opportunity his sinister love affair with Lolita. Exactly Lolita’s methods are vivid examples of the inherent Filipino tendency to rescue and resuscitate the dying hope of her family swimming in destitution back home. From here we are forced to realize whether the judgment she makes precipitates Hanzel’s early demise and leaving a relentless quandary on the morality of decision. Lolo Abdon, who, we come to know as the traditional, stick-in-the-mud grandfather, the only paternal figure Hanzel looks up to, subtly wondering if his betrayal of his grandson’s trust and friendship could have been a catalyst to such a tragedy. And then there is Dolores, whose acceptance and compassion towards Hanzel is, unusually, perceived from a Filipino girl born and reared in the west. It is through her that belies the notion of the disaffected youth, a contradiction versus the tight upbringing of Filipino children back home. Her attitude towards Hanzel, while at times, subservient, is sufficient to say of the kind of guidance she is attempting to bestow however unreciprocated that may be.

In retrospect, Batang West Side may be Lav Diaz’s own take at Wilfred Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth, and possibly a sort of auto-da-fe. His belief that the Filipino society represented by the temporarily displaced youth–the Hanzel Haranas of the world, would rather barter a future of happiness yet bound by poverty to a promise of existence marred by definite uncertainty, somehow will always be a question that incessantly resonates within us.

From the Blog, Brainstorms From The Shower, November 24, 2010

Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino (Evolution of a Filipino Family)

By Francis "Oggs" Cruz

It was Dec. 17, 2004, an hour before midnight. The sun seemed like a distant memory. The black-and-white images on-screen — images of the families of a farmer and a miner struggling through the torturous passage of languorous time — felt more immediate, more real. The nearly 12 hours I spent inside the aging Cine Adarna theater at the University of the Philippines, watching "Ebolusyong ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino" felt like a lifetime. The theater is named after the mythical, elusive Adarna bird, a creature whose songs can cure many illnesses and induce anyone to sleep. As director Lav Diaz painstakingly created a cinematic universe with a heartbreaking resemblance to reality, there were times when the movie had an Adarna-like effect, even lulling me to sleep.

But the movie also cured me of the misconception of what cinema can be. The movie's official 10-hour running time kept growing because Diaz practices the do-it-yourself independent filmmaking style that he preaches. The production of every Diaz film typically lasts up until the moment that it is projected. The director was still finalizing post-production on "Ebolusyon" on the day of the Adarna screening, so he kept traveling via taxicab from Cubao, where he was editing, back to the campus every few hours, delivering another section of the film, then getting in the cab and going back home.

Unsurprisingly, there were many walkouts. But for the hardy few that spent half a day in the darkness of Diaz's vision, this was a life-changing theatrical experience — a 12-hour moment that defined cinema as not only pleasurable but also prolonged and painful; an experience that, despite its aches, you long for, search for, live for and love, not because it gives you pleasure, as most films do, but because it defines you.

From the site Film Salon. Slide Show: The movie experience I can't forget moderated by Matt Zoller Seitz

Evolucao de Uma Familia Filipina

Por Fabricio Duque

Apresentação

Conhecer o Cinema Filipino necessita-se de tempo. Há a preparação prévia do espectador. Nesse filme em questão, a duração é de 643 minutos, traduzidos em 10 horas e 43 minutos, divididos em 12 fitas mini-dv (mídia digital). A maratona começou às dez horas da manhã, no CCBB RJ, terminando 21 horas e 45 minutos, com intervalo de 40 minutos para almoço e 20 para o lanche, totalizando uma hora (sem exceder o tempo). Os organizadores não atrasaram a exibição, possibilitando uma viagem cinematográfica única, sem percalços e sem irritabilidades. Lav Diaz é o diretor desta epopéia. Na mostra, há outros dois filmes. "Melancolia", por exemplo, possui 441 minutos. É o cineasta dos épicos.

A opinião

O Cinema Filipino distancia-se do estilo cinematográfico comercial. Escolhe-se o alternativo, o independente. A experimentação pulula em cada mudança de cena, enquadramento, camera, enfim, em toda parte técnica, em interpretação e narrativa. O diretor privilegia planos longos, respeitando o tempo narrado. Objetiva-se o dia-a-dia real, com ações naturais. A camera aguarda, espera. Ora comportando-se como personagem, ora como observadora, deixando os personagens longes, quase como borrões de imagem, por causa do posicionamento da camera: de frente ao sol.

Há silêncios, não havendo a necessidade de utilizar o recurso da música para compor o trama apresentada. Com isso, o espectador absorve e questiona o valor do sentimento, com sutilezas aprofundadas das interpretações. Há a busca do amadorismo quando realiza a interação metalinguística. Comporta-se como um DOGMA 95, já que a iluminação é natural, muitas vezes escura, com sombras, com reflexo do fogo ou da luz da lanterna dos mineradores.

A saga da pobre família Gallardo, que vive em uma comunidade rural das filipinas. Sua trajetória serve como metáfora da história do país durante a imposição da lei marcial pelo presidente Ferdinand Marcos e o crescimento da atividade guerrilheira, entre 1971 e 1987. Enquanto as economias vão acabando, a família Gallardo, lentamente, se separa. O filme começou a ser feito em 1993, sendo realizado durante dez anos até ficar pronto.

A parte inicial da família vai aos guerrilheiros, que intercala imagens de arquivo de guerra contra o imperialismo filipino. Há digressões em saltos de narrativa, que explicam os integrantes da família. Entre sonhos, epifanias, realidades, futuros e passados, conta-se a história de uma dominação ditatorial. A trama não se apresenta de forma linear.

Demora-se um tempo para que se possa concatenar e juntar as peças de tudo. Leia-se algumas horas. Mas a lentidão é válida e extremamente necessária para o desenrolar de todas as questões. São várias histórias dentro de histórias que se juntam. Uma delas é de Ray, o bebê das formigas, encontrado "supostamente" em Manila. Outra é a mãe que não aceita a filha. "Ela trouxe má sorte, nunca poderei perdoá-la", ela diz.


Os personagens são retratados em seus crescimentos, erros e acertos. Há a humanização deles, os descrevendo como ingênuos naturais. Sofrem as mazelas da crueldade do mundo, das fofocas dos membros da própria comunidade e precisam lutar pelo pedaço de terra e trabalho, dentro de uma sociedade maior que dita as regras, favorecendo os próprios interesses. É a lei dos mais fortes. Mostrando que o trabalho permanece presente. Sem ele não se vive.

O rádio é um elemento constante. Por ele passam-se todas as histórias. Uns ouvem, outros participam. "400 pesos", é o seu preço. Os programas deste veículo abordam desejos, anseios, fornecendo a percepção que os problemas são iguais em qualquer família. A novela dramatiza a vida real. A conversa é quase narrada, brega, clichê, folhetinesca. É uma crítica a banalização do que se acontece no cotidiano. Entre uma escutada e outra, diz-se "O alho está ficando caro demais". Há o realismo conhecido, que busca a fantasia para alienar-se. "Qual o problema em ouvir histórias", diz-se sobre a imposição do "possível" certo.

É um filme político, que utiliza a metáfora para abrandar e folhear o que se quer transmitir. A cegueira de um, a ‘mudice’ de outro, o patriarca autoritário, a prisão real, as regras carcerárias, a busca por um mundo melhor e de novo o rádio. Há também a guerra, a violência, a obediência e a ordem. As vítimas e os sobreviventes não visualizam o futuro. As consequências: mortos e feridos. Em contra ponto, há a simplicidade das crianças brincando na praia e pulando corda, vivenciando o que se pode viver. Há o existencialismo sobre a vida de um inseto. Há referências que respeitam quem está do outro lado da tela.

Há profundidade nos personagens, que sofrem, expressando raiva e descontentamento de uma vida sem perspectiva. Expurga-se cortando madeiro, por exemplo. Não parece ficção. Os diálogos da cena entre a neta e a sua avó são reais, naturais, sem encenação. Eles acontecem por si só, como na própria vida, que segue. A colheita, a lama, lavrar a terra. Trabalho rural. "Não são burros, apenas cresceram em um mundo diferente", diz-se sobre jovens que não pensam como os mais velhos. De novo, repito, a construção da narrativa fornece realismo aos diálogos. Há cenas que acontecem. A dança e o canto em volta da fogueira. Há mineração e escavação. O longa passeia por todos os elementos épicos e destrincha formas de sobrevivência filipina.

O objetivo, questionado no próprio filme, é redescobrir o que é ser filipino. Quebrar os estereótipos. Há interação com um diretor de cinema fictício. Há making of do programa de rádio. Há experimentação de imagem em imagem. "Somos todos filipinos", diz-se em cenas de revoltas à ditadura, em meio a crises existenciais, culpas e resignações sofridas.

O recomeço. Espera-se lentamente a vida voltar ao normal. "Os tempos mudaram. Ficaram mais escuros", sobre a metafísico do escurecimento do dia às dezoito horas. Infere-se o lado sombrio do ser humano, cada vez mais embrutecido, em meio a cenas simétricas de imagens. Recomeçar vendendo pudim de soja. Há epifanias silenciosas. Há catarses melancólicas. Há a explicação explícita da proibição dos filmes e do Festival de Cinema do ditador. "Uma ditadura cinematográfica. Do roteiro à narrativa. O filme do Scorsese 'Última tentação de Cristo', foi proibida também". Busca-se a "liberdade dos cineastas". Há uma cena que pode ser considerada como a morte mais longa da história do cinema. Tudo pelo fim da militarização.

A vida continua. A espera também. As mesmas ações. O mesmo trabalho. É um filme de imagens, que retrata uma época, rica em seu material. "Perdas acontecem. Segue-se em frente da mesma forma. Muda-se uma coisa ou outra, mas é quase tudo igual", finaliza-se. Vale muito a pena ser visto. É um encontro sensorial em todos os aspectos. Recomendo.

O Diretor

Lavrente Indico Diaz é um premiado cineasta independente que nasceu em 30 de dezembro de 1958. Ele atua em diversas funções concomitantemente, como diretor, roteirista, produtor, editor, diretor de fotografia, poeta, compositor, ator e diretor de arte. É especialmente conhecido pelo comprimento de seus filmes, alguns dos quais chegam a durar até onze horas. Após trabalhar durante anos para a principal empresa produtora das Filipinas, a Regal Films, comandada por Mother Lily, Lav dirigiu em 2001 Batang West Side , divisor de águas em sua carreira e marco do cinema independente filipino. O filme foi o primeiro de sua trilogia Filipina, completada por Evolução de uma Família Filipina e Heremias . Seus dois últimos longas, também épicos de longa duração, participaram, com sucesso, do Festival de Veneza. O primeiro, Death in the Land of Encantos , ganhou menção honrosa na mostra Orizzonti em 2007, e Melancolia conquistou o prêmio principal no ano seguinte. Por toda sua trajetória, Lav é considerado o pai ideológico do cinema independente filipino.

From the blog vertentes do cinema, July 15, 2010

Lav Diaz: Mini-Dosier

Von Lukas Foerster

Über Lav Diaz wird viel geschrieben, seine Filme werden selten gezeigt. Die zentrale Figur des neuen philippinischen Kinos – und mein Lieblingsregisseur im Gegenwartskino – stieß erst verhältnismäßig spät, mit 40 Jahren, zum Film, davor arbeitete Diaz vor allem als Journalist. Vielleicht auch deswegen ist er nicht nur der ästhetisch interessanteste, sondern auch der politisch artikulierteste Regisseur seines Landes. Seine ersten Filme entstanden innerhalb der kommerziellen Filmindustrie. Der erste Film außerhalb derselben entstand 2001 und ist heute aufgrund seiner faktischen Unsichtbarkeit so etwas wie der heilige Gral des philippinischen Gegenwartskinos: Die einzige theoretisch vorführbare Kopie des sechsstündigen Emigrantenepos Batang West Side liegt bei einem durchgeknallten Produzenten unter Verschluss. Die späteren Filme sind – zumindest im Kino, wo sie hingehören – nur minimal sichtbarer.

Naked Under the Moon (1999): Ein frühes Drama um zwei Schwestern, Vergewaltigungen, Schlafwandeln, Untreue, relifiöse Verblendung und vieles mehr. Auf den ersten Blick enthält das alles nur wenige Elemente des reifen Werks. Auf den zweiten beschreibt allerdings auch Naked Under the Moon schon eine eindringliche “Evolution of a Filipino Family”, die noch in ein melodramatisches Kokon verpackt, was später zur nationalen Allegorie reifen wird.

Hesus the Revolutionary (2002): Diaz’ letzte und ambitionierteste kommerzielle Arbeit ist ein politischer Actionfilm. Hesus the Revolutionary kann als Versuch betrachtet werden, im Stil eines Lino Brocka oder Chatrichalerm Yukol Genreformeln für radikale politische Kritik zu instrumentalisieren. Der als Science Fiction deklarierte Film ist leicht als Allegorie auf die Marcos-Diktatur zu lesen und ruft gleichzeitig zum Widerstand gegen die Remilitarisierung der philippinischen Innenpolitik seit dem Ende der Neunziger Jahre. Der Held, Anführer einer Rebellenorganisation, nimmt bereits die Märtyrergestalten der späteren Epen vorweg. In letzter Instanz ist Hesus the Revolutionary zwar ein sehr interessanter, aber doch ein gescheiterter Film, nach dem die radikale Abkehr vom Markt nur folgerichtig wirkt.

Evolution of a Filipino Family (2004): Das Magnum Opus, mit dessen Planung und Produktion Diaz bereits vor seinen ersten Schritten in der kommerziellen Filmindustrie begann. Es gibt viel zu diesem Film zu sagen, an dieser Stelle nur die paar Sätze, die ich im Programmheft unserer Reihe verfasst habe: “Der Schlüsselfilm des Neuen Philippinischen Kinos: Ein Jahrzehnt lang arbeitete Lav Diaz an seinem magnum opus, dem elfstündigen Ebolusyon ng isang pamilyang Pilipino (Evolution of a Filipino Family). Die ältesten Aufnahmen stammen aus der Mitte der 1990er Jahre, im Laufe des Films kann man einer der Hauptfiguren buchstäblich beim Aufwachsen zusehen. Diaz entwirft eine komplexe Familienchronik, die eng mit der politischen Geschichte der Philippinen während der letzten Jahre der Marcos-Diktatur verknüpft ist. Es geht um Findelkinder und Geisteskranke, um Vergewaltigung, Mord und Rache, schließlich um eine apokalyptisch anmutende Goldsuche. Außerdem ist der Film durchsetzt von historischen Filmaufnahmen, Radio-Seifenopern und anderen historischen Artefakten. Vor allem geht es aber um ganz alltägliche Handlungen, um Mahlzeiten, um Streitgespräche, ums Warten, um Klatsch und um Liebe, kurzum darum, das Leben selbst aus den Fängen der dominanten Geschichtsschreibung zu bergen. Gegossen ist dieser Film über den Leidensweg einer ganzen Nation in kontrastreiche, digitale Schwarz-Weiß-Bilder, einzelne Einstellungen dauern nicht selten zehn Minuten. „Die Spuren der Zeit sind unauslöschlich eingetragen in das Bildmaterial und die Geschichte selbst.“ (Ekkehard Knörer).”

Heremias (Book One: The Legend of the Lizard Princess) (2006): Mein Text für die Splatting Image: “Eine staubige Landstraße schlängelt sich durch spärlich bewachsenes Hügelland. Anfangs ist kaum eine Bewegung zu erkennen. Ganz langsam verdichten sich im Hintergrund einige digitale Bildpunkte zu noch nicht genauer definierbaren Gefährten, die sich der Kamera nähern. Dass es sich um Ochsenkarren handelt, ist erst nach ein paar Minuten zweifelsfrei festzustellen. Das Kamerablickfeld verlassen werden diese Ochsenkarren erst nach gut zehn Minuten. Währenddessen durchqueren einige Male Automobile die Leinwand und benötigen dazu kaum länger als dreißig Sekunden. Der Film aber wartet, bis auch der letzte der Ochsenkarren den Straßenabschnitt passiert hat. Jeder Film steht vor der Wahl, ob er sich für die Autogeschwindigkeit oder die Ochsenkarrengeschwindigkeit entscheiden möchte. Wie viele Filme die Autos wählen, wird erst klar, wenn ein Film wie Heremias daherkommt, der sich ganz und gar den Ochsenkarren verschreibt. „I survived Lav Diaz’s Heremias“ lautet der Titel eines Blogposts, das sich mit dem neunstündigen philippinischen Film beschäftigt. Nicht nur in diesem Fall scheint eine Auseinandersetzung mit Werken wie Heremiasselbstreflexive Überlegungen des Kritikers / Zuschauers automatisch mit einzuschließen. Der eigene Blick auf den Film wird plötzlich mindestens ebenso interessant wie der Film selbst. In der Tat stellt Heremias das konventionelle Rezeptionsmodell schon alleine aufgrund seiner bloßen Länge in Frage. Ein neunstündiger Film transformiert das Zeiterleben um einiges radikaler als ein klassischer, 90 bis 120-minütiger Spielfilm. Selbstverständlich setzt auch ein solcher die reale Zeit in mancher Hinsicht außer Kraft und ersetzt sie durch eine filmische. Doch in seiner Gesamtheit passt er sich ohne Probleme in die Muster des Alltagslebens ein und orientiert sich an einem Intervall, das von Schulstunden oder Universitätsvorlesungen bestens bekannt ist. Ein neunstündiger Film sprengt solche Alltagsbezüge, er lässt sich nicht ohne weiteres in die Tagesplanung integrieren, stört den Fluss der fein säuberlich segmentierten Zeit. Ein neunstündiger Film stellt per se einen Exzess dar, der irgendwie unzulässig erscheint, wohl auch, weil er beim besten Willen nicht mehr in dem Bedürfnis nach Unterhaltung aufgeht, das das Kino als seine Existenzberechtigung voraussetzt. Ein neunstündiger Film ist eine Herausforderung für das Selbstverständnis des Publikums wie des Kritikers und verlangt eine Reaktion. Leider sind in diesem speziellen Fall „Publikum“ und „Kritiker“ fast identisch. Regisseur Lav Diaz gehört zu einer Gruppe junger philippinischer Filmemacher, die seit einigen Jahren die Festivalleinwände dieser Welt mit digital gedrehten Werken jenseits aller klassischen Kategorien unsicher machen. Zunächst feierte man Diaz sowie seine Kollegen Raya Martin, Khavn und John Torres an den Rändern des Fesitvalzirkusses, in Rotterdam, Buenos Aires oder der heimischen Neugründung Cinemanila, inzwischen haben sie Venedig, Berlin und Cannes erreicht. Außerhalb dieser cinephilen Parallelwelt bleibt das Kino – abgesehen von wenigen, umso wertvolleren Ausnahmen – unsichtbar. Bevor ein deutsches Arthauskino einen philippinischen Film in sein Programm aufnimmt, läuft im Cinestar Heinz Emigholz. Und auch alternative Vertriebswege wie DVD oder Internet sind Diaz und Co bislang keine große Hilfe. Lav Diaz hat im Gegensatz zum Großteil seiner Mitstreiter eine kurze Karriere in der lokalen Filmindustrie hinter sich. Seine ersten Streifen inszenierte er für den Giganten Regal Films in den späten Neunziger Jahren. Als im Jahr 2001 dann Batang West Side erschien, ein fünfstündiges Epos über Exilphilippinos in New Jersey, war klar, wohin die Reise führt. Das philippinische Kommerzkino steckt heute in einer schweren Krise. Vielleicht war Diaz’ bewusste Entscheidung für die Ränder des Arthausghettos rückblickend karrieretechnisch nicht die schlechteste. 2004 folgte der Zehneinhalbstünder Evolution of a Filipino Family, dann Heremias und letztes Jahr schaffte es Death in the Land of the Encantos mit ebenfalls neun Stunden Dauer sogar in Venedig in den Wettbewerb. Gesehen habe ich von diesen anderen Filmen noch keinen einzigen. Selbst in Berlin sind und bleiben solche Werke faktisch unsichtbar. Heremias ist Teil eines parallelen Kinos, eines Kinos der Insider und Hippster. All denjenigen, die nicht zum auserwählten Kreis des Festival-Jetsets gehören, bleibt keine andere Möglichkeit, als auf die raren festivalfernen Screenings zu warten. Dieses Warten ist vielleicht nicht einmal die schlechteste Einübung auf einen Film wie Heremias. Irgendwann ist die erste Einstellung zu Ende. Die zweite zeigt dieselben Ochsenkarren auf einem anderen Straßenabschnitt, diesmal während der Dämmerung am späten Abend. Die Einstellung dauert so lange, dass der Einbruch der Dunkelheit nachvollzogen werden kann. Wieder nähern sich die Fahrzeuge aus dem Hintergrund, sind zunächst kaum sichtbar, wachsen dann, je näher sie der Kamera rücken, ins riesenhafte. Mit herunterhängenden Schultern sitzen die Ochsentreiber Gespenstern gleich auf ihren Karren, fast leb- und völlig bewegungslos. Heremias macht die einfachsten filmischen Mittel, die im restlichen Kino selten mehr sind als ihre eigenen Klischees, wieder in ihrer spezifischen Eigenart sichtbar. Die Großaufnahme der Ochsentreiber ist nur deshalb so furchteinflößend und monumental, weil sich der Film minutenlang auf sie vorbereitet. Analog dazu ist auch die erste Kamerabewegung des Films nur deshalb so brutal, weil sie erst nach zwei Stunden Laufzeit stattfindet. Ein kleiner Linksschwenk nur, und doch zerreißt er den filmischen Raum mit ungeheuerlicher Kraft, als handele es sich um eine der radikalsten filmischen Gesten der Kinogeschichte. Gleichzeitig setzt diese kleine Kamerabewegung in der Binnenstruktur des Films die Erzählung in Gang. Vorher lernten wir, während Futterpausen und nächtlicher Gespräche am Lagerfeuer, sehr beiläufig Heremias kennen. Heremias ist Mitglied einer Gruppe Ochsentreiber, die von Stadt zu Stadt zieht und von ihren Wagen Haushaltswaren verscherbelt. Heremias scheint sich von seinen Kollegen entfremdet zu haben. Der erwähnte kurze Schwenk genügt, um ihn von ihnen zu trennen. Er hört nicht auf die Warnungen seiner ehemaligen Gefährten und macht sich alleine auf den Weg in eine unwirtliche Bergregion. Eine weitere Stunde verfolgt der Film Heremias, wie er alleine dem Regen und der Landschaft trotzt, seinen Ochsen steile Bergwege hinauftreibt und umgefallene Bäume beseitigt. Die Kamera hat sich aus ihrer Starre befreit und ist mobil geworden. Nach der dritten Stunde sucht er Unterschlupf in einem verlassenen Bauernhaus. Einige Bewohner des nahe gelegenen Dorfes leisten ihm Gesellschaft und erzählen Geschichten aus dem zweiten Weltkrieg über einen japanischen General mit Namen Oshima. Als Heremias am nächsten Tag aufwacht, ist sein Wagen verbrannt und der Ochse verschwunden. Den Großteil des restlichen Films wird Heremias mit der Suche nach dem Schuldigen verbringen. Der zuständige Polizist macht ihm nach einigen lieblosen Routineuntersuchungen klar, dass er ohne den zusätzlichen Anreiz eines Bestechungsgeldes nicht weiter von Nutzen sein wird. Der bitterarme Heremias hat keine andere Möglichkeit, als selber in die Rolle des Ermittlers zu schlüpfen. Hinter der spröden, formalistischen Schale kommt im Laufe der Stunden eine komplexe Auseinandersetzung mit Geschichte und Sozialstruktur der Philippinen zum Vorschein. Und die Philippinen sind zuallererst ein bitterarmer, unterentwickelter Agrarstaat. Heremias durchquert mit den fahrenden Händlern und ihren Ochsenwagen die ländliche Einöde ebenso wie die Slums der Städte. Auf diesem Weg dringt nicht nur das Alltagsleben der verelendeten Massen in den Film ein, sondern auch deren oral history, in Form von Volksliedern und mystischen Legenden. Im Lauf der Zeit dringen in den Film selbst mystische Elemente ein. Von Anfang an ist Heremias in seiner Irrationalität ein sonderbarer Protagonist. Gegen Ende seines Abenteuers verwandelt sich der Held in eine Art metaphysische Erlöserfigur, in der sich soziopolitische und spirituelle Motive vermischen. Nicht verwechseln sollte man diese Wendung ins Mystische mit esoterischem Ethno-Quatsch. Von so etwas ist ein Film wie Heremias, der sein künsterisches Konzept kompromisslos wie kaum ein zweiter ausbuchstabiert, denkbar weit entfernt. Eher geht es – doch dies ist nur ein vorsichtiger Versuch meinerseits, in dem die Komplexität Diaz’ Werkes bei weitem nicht aufgeht – darum, im Sinne der postkolonialen Theorie den imaginären Selbstentwürfen der Unterdrückten ihr Recht zu lassen und sie gleichzeitig in ihrer soziopolitischen Bedingtheit sichtbar zu machen. Wie fast alle Filme des neuen philippinischen Kinos ist Heremias mit digitaler Kamera gedreht und zwar mit einer, der die Kinderkrankheiten der neuen Technik noch nicht ausgetrieben sind. In körnigem Schwarz-Weiß kommen die Bilder daher, oft dauert es eine ganze Weile, bis man sich in den spärlich beleuchteten Panoramen zurechtfindet. Vor allem eine längere Sequenz im Wald (und lang bedeutet in diesem Fall: stundenlang) stellt einen einzigen Angriff auf das Prinzip der Sichtbarkeit dar. Zwischen dem Astwerk erahnt man die Vorgänge mehr als dass man sie erkennt, sonderbar geformte Blätter verwandeln sich in Monster und geben ihre harmlose, pflanzliche Natur nur langsam Preis. Die digitalen Tapes erlauben Aufnahmen von einer Stunde Länge und damit eine Longshot-Ästhetik, die auf 35mm nicht, oder nur mit Tricks, möglich war. Hier, im Wald, nutzt Lav Diaz die neuen Möglichkeiten mit aller Konsequenz aus. Eine ganze Stunde lang beobachtet Heremias – und der Film mit ihm – eine Gruppe Jugendlicher beieinem Besäufnis, das sich langsam aber sicher in ein apokalyptisch anmutendes Horrorszenario verwandelt. Irgendwann ist auch diese nervenaufreibende Stunde zu Ende und tatsächliche findet Heremias schließlich zu einem Abschluss. Doch dann fällt der Blick auf den Untertitel: „Book One: The Legend of the Lizard Princess“. Fortsetzung folgt.”

Death in the Land of Encantos (2007): Aus meinem Text für die Splatting Image: “Death in the Land of the Encantos nimmt die Verwüstungen des Taifuns Durian zu Füßen des Vulkans Mayon als Ausgangspunkt. Anfang Dezember 2006 starben mehr als 1000 Menschen an den Folgen der Naturkatastrophe auf den Inseln im Umfeld des Vulkans. Nur eine Woche nach der Katastrophe begann Diaz vor Ort zu filmen, mit digitaler Kamera und minimalem Büdget: Weniger als 10000 $ kostete der neunstündige Film insgesamt. Die Zerstörung prägt den Film in jeder Hinsicht. Die Bilder zeigen eingestürzte Wellblechhütten, Trümmer, Kleidungsfetzen, aber auch umgestürzte Bäume, Flüsse, die sich neue Wege gebahnt haben, Schlamm, Dreck. Kultur und Natur sind gleichermaßen am Boden. Der Film ist dann eine einzige, delirierende und dennoch konsequente Öffnung hin auf dieses zerstörte Land. Death in the Land of the Encantos wählt, ganz im Gegensatz zu den streng strukturierten, exakt konstruierten übrigen Filmen des Regisseurs, die sich nach der Länge der einzelnen Videotapes, aus denen sie bestehen, strukturieren, dafür eine fast völlig offene Form. Ausgehend von immer wiederkehrenden Trümmerbildern in grobpixeligem Schwarz-Weiß und dem diaztypischen Antihelden Benjamin, einem Dichter und politischen Aktivisten, der aus dem russischen Exil in die Philippinen zurückgekehrt ist, unternimmt der Film Reisen in die unterschiedlichsten Richtungen und entfernt sich doch nie von seinem Anliegen. Mal bewegt sich Diaz in Richtung auf dokumentarische Formen, mal in Richtung Selbstreflexivität, einmal sogar zurück zum Vorgänger Heremias (siehe SI 74), dann wieder unternimmt er dialogreich Ausflüge in diverse Diskursfelder, vor allem in die politische Geschichte und Gegenwart der Philippinen, aber auch in die Philosophie und in die Kunstgeschichte. Er erkundet andere Räume, naheligende und weniger naheliegende, Russland besipielsweise, das freilich nicht das echte Russland ist, sondern nur die Projektion eines Russlands, ein “country built against the sky”, schließlich auch und vor allem die philippinische Hauptstadt Manila, deren bedrohlichen, düsteren und menschenfeindlichen Hochhäuser eine grundsätzlich andere, vertikale Raumorganisation etablieren. Immer wieder bewegt sich Death in the Land of the Encantos gleichzeitig hin zu den zahlreichen Frauenfiguren des Films, zu Frauen die teilweise ineinander verschwimmen und deren ontologischer Status nicht in allen Fällen gesichert ist. Diese in sich jeweils sehr unterschiedlichen Bewegungen hin zu den Frauen sind vielleicht das beeindruckendste an diesem unendlich beeindruckenden Film. Lav Diaz scheint den Versuch zu unternehmen, so viel wie nur möglich auf diese Frauen zu projizieren und doch übt er dabei in keiner Weise ungebührlich Macht über sie aus. Gleich zu Beginn schneidet Diaz von einer langen Einstellung, die sich unsicher tastend über die verwüstete Landschaft bewegt auf eine nackte Frau, die im Bett liegt. Die Kamera schwebt dann mit genau derselben Unsicherheit und Vorsicht über dem Körper diese Frau, das existentielle, chaotische Elend wird umgeschrieben auf makellose, glänzende Hautpartien. Später tauchen andere Frauen auf, Benjamins Mutter zum Beispiel, dann eine Russin, eine tote Schwester, die Ex-Freundin Catalina und noch ein paar weitere und irgendwie scheint der mythische, brutale, wunderschöne Vulkan Mayon auch mit diesen Frauen, oder zumindest mit einer der vielen Ideen von Weiblichkeit, die der Film entwirft, zu tun zu haben. (Es gibt, und bei weitem nicht nur pro forma, auch feministische Diskurse in diesem Film und wie auch in anderen Diaz-Filmen ist die einzige Figur, die einen zumindest teilweise produktiven Weltbezug errreicht, eine Frau, nämlich Benjamins Ex Catalina, verkörpert von Angeli Bayani, die ein Jahr später in Melancholia eine sehr ähnliche Rolle übernehmen wird.) Die ersten Stunden bewegt sich der Film frei durch Zeit und Raum, umkreist auf immer neuen Bahnen die reale Verwüstung, an der er sich entzündet. Doch je länger er dauert, desto mehr verlagert sich diese urwüchsige Dynamik auf Benjamin, dem im letzten Drittel dann ein Martyrium bereitet wird, das in der Filmgeschichte seinesgleichen sucht. Der eigentliche Beginn dieses Martyriums ist, nach einer längeren Passage, in der er ganz aus dem Film verschwindet, eine unglaublich intensive Szene in Manila. Zunächst führt der Film die Stadt als einen Ort der bedrohlichen, grausamen Vertikalität ein, die erste Einstellung in Manila zeigt eine Straße, die an drei Seiten von finster glänzenden Hochhäusern umgeben ist, die jegliches Leben, jede Bewegung im Keim und in ihren Schatten ersticken. Nach einer kurzen Passage mit bewegter, desorientierter Kamera durch diesen vertikalen Alptraum findet der Film Benjamin in einem Cafe, im Hintergrund vorbeifahrende Autos, auf der Tonspur Straßenlärm. Benjamin sitzt und liest, irgendwann setzt sich ein weiterer Mann zu ihm, der sich als ein Mitarbeiter der Geheimpolizei entpuppt, der Benjamin einst folterte. Es folgt ein verbitterter und unerbittlicher Schlagabtausch, Benjamin wirft seinem Peiniger seine ganze Verzweiflung und den letzten Rest an Hoffnung, der ihm noch geblieben ist, entgegen, er appeliert an einen Rest an Humanität, den er in seinem Peiniger vermutet, doch alles vergeblich. Sein Gesprächspartner macht sich nicht einmal die Mühe, auf moralische Appelle zu antworten, er bleibt stumpfes Vollzugsorgan des brutalisierten Staatsapparates und wiederholt ständig dieselben Drohungen. Als der Geheimpolizist schließlich nach einem Gespräch, das im Grunde gar keines war, verschwindet, haben sich die Lichtverhältnisse geändert. Benjamin ist nur noch eine schwarze Silhouette vor dem Hintergrund des hell erleuchteten Fensters, weiße Lichtreflektionen schimmern gespenstisch und schieben sich vor diese Silhouette. Im Grunde stirbt Benjamin bereits in dieser Einstellung, durch den restlichen Film bewegt er sich wie ein Geist. Endgültig zu diesem Gespenst wird er später (bei Lav Diaz muss so etwas immer gelesen werden als: Stunden später) in Catalinas Haus, im Wohnzimmer. Am Ende einer weiteren verstörenden Szene bewegt sich der vom Schicksal gezeichnete Benjamin zum Fenster, über sein Gesicht legt sich ein weißer, kalter Lichtstreifen wie eine Totenmaske. Noch ein letztes Aufraffen ist ihm gegönnt, in seltsam aufrechter Körperhaltung unterhält er sich mit seinem Jugendfreund und ewigen Kontahenten Teodoro und breitet vor diesem sein ganzes Martyrium aus. Am Schluss dieses Gesprächs ist nicht nur Benjamin am Ende, sondern auch Teodoro, der sich bis dahin in Indifferenz geflüchtet und damit gut gefahren ist, der aber in dieser Szene zu einem zweiten Benjamin wird und nach dessen Tod dessen Erbe antreten kann und muss. Nun ist Benjamin bereit, ganz und gar und in jeder Hinsicht zu sterben. Der Film figuriert diesen Tod multiperspektivisch und multimodal. Eine längere Passage, in der Catalina und Teodoro Benjamin gegenüber einem zynischen Reporter verteidigen, verhindert ein Abgleiten in Fatalismus, unendlich bitter und verheerend sind diese letzten Stunden dennoch. Und erst recht die allerletzte Szene, eine schreckenerregende Miniatur irgendwo zwischen ins durch und durch Finstere gewendeter homoerotischer S/M-Fantasie (die Frauen sind sehr radikal abwesend in dieser letzten Szene) und klinisch reiner Grausamkeit (an der Wand hängt ein Yuppie-Wandspiegel). Tiefschwarz und wie der gesamte Film sowohl physisch wie auch psychisch weit jenseits der Schmerzgrenze.”

Melancholia (2008): Im selben Text schreibe ich auch über Melancholia: “Nur ein Jahr später dreht Lav Diaz ein weiteres Epos. Melancholia ist eine Stunde kürzer als Death in the Land of the Encantos, kostete ebenfalls weniger als 10000 $ und lief ebenfalls in Venedig im Wettbewerb. In diesem neuen Film geht es nicht mehr primär um die rohe Gewalt einer Staatsmacht, welche eine Auseinandersetzung mit der eigenen Geschichte und der sozialen Gegenwart verunmöglicht. Vielmehr entwirft Diaz eine moralische Selbstbefragung der Rebellen und ihres Märtyrertums. Und wie in Koji Wakamatsus fellow masterpiece United Red Army hat auch bei Lav Diaz diese Selbstbefragung ihren Preis. Melancholia beginnt in einer philippinischen Kleinstadt. Zunächst sind da nur drei Menschen, zwei Frauen und ein Mann, die sich auf den Straßen dieser Kleinstadt durch Lav Diaz’ starre, minutenlange, grobpixelig schwarz-weißen Einstellungen bewegen, ohne erkennbares Ziel. Manchmal begegnen sie sich auf den Straßen. Zunächst scheinen sie sich nicht zu kennen, doch einmal lacht die eine Frau verhalten lachen, als sie die andere sieht. Eine der Frauen ist durch ihre Kleidung als Nonne erkennbar und bittet Passanten um Spenden für die Armen, die anderen beiden Figuren werden erst durch ihre späteren Handlungen als Prostituierte und Zuhälter identifiziert. Der Zuhälter inszeniert Live-Sex-Shows für zahlungskräftiges Publikum, die Prostituierte bricht in Anwesenheit eines ausländischen Freiers in Tränen aus. Noch später wird klar, dass die Nonne keine Nonne ist, die Prostituierte keine Prostituierte und der Zuhälter kein Zuhälter. Melancholia beginnt mit einer Charade. Drei Stunden dauert diese Charade, sie gewinnt in diesen drei Stunden eine bedrückende Eigendynamik und doch geht der Film nach dem Ende der Charade erst richtig los. Der sonderbare Anfang von Melancholia inszeniert in dieser Charade eine eigenwillige Form von Vergangenheitsbewältigung. Die Nonne Rina, der Zuhälter Julian und die Prostituierte Jenine, die eigentlich Alberta heißt, sind, das offenbart sich nach und nach, im echten Leben traumatisierte Intellektuelle, die einst in militanten linken Untergrundorganisationen tätig waren und in ihren bürgerlichen Berufen nicht glücklich zu werden vermögen. Es geht in Melancholia um ein dezidiert intellektuelles Millieu. Das ist neu im Werk des Philippinos, in den vorherigen Filmen stand die arme Landbevölkerung im Mittelpunkt. Dieses intellektuelle Millieu hat Auswirkungen auf die gesamte Ästhetik des Films. Melancholia ist bisweilen in fast schon klassisch modernistisch-selbstreflexiver Film. Und das vor allem, weil Julian und seine Mitstreiter ihr eigenes Handeln nur noch als reflexives, abgeleitetes, nicht mehr als authentisches erleben können. Erst ganz am Ende, in den wiederum äußerst intensiven letzten beiden Stunden des Films, bricht die alte, urwüchsige Lav-Diaz-Zeit wieder über Melancholia herein. Der Film findet in den Dschungel zurück. Dorthin, wo alles angefangen hat und wo Charaden nutzlos sind. Julian ist zwar ein archetypischer Lav-Diaz-Held, aber er ist auch, das stellt sich hinterher heraus, Initiator der Charade. Es ging, das führt er schließlich lang und breit aus und seine Zuhörerin Alberta möchte dem immer selbstherrlicher auftretenden Julian dabei fast an die Gurgel springen, in dieser Charade nicht darum, durch Verkleidung der Wirklichkeit zu entfliehen. Ganz im Gegenteil sucht Julian, und mit ihm Lav Diaz, in der Verkleidung die Wahrheit. Doch ob der Weg den Julian einschlägt, der Richtige ist, das lässt Lav Diaz offen. Das Verhältnis des Films zur Hauptfigur bleibt deutlich ambivalenter als in den Vorgängern. In vielem ist Benjamin eher Narzisst als Märtyrer. Melancholia ist ein Film über Menschen, die von ihrer Vergangenheit wieder und wieder heimgesucht werden und dennoch kaum in der Lage sind, etwas aus ihr oder auch nur über sie zu lernen.”

Upheaval (2008): Ein Nebenwerk, aber was heißt das schon bei Lav Diaz. Das größere Projekt, von dem dieser Performancefilm ursprünglich nur einen Teil darstellen sollte, scheint sich bis heute noch nicht materialiert zu haben. Ich habe darüber geschrieben: “Upheaval ist eine gefilmte Tanzperformance (der erste Teil einer geplanten 15-teiligen installativen Arbeit, wenn ich das richtig mitbekommen habe). Das Genre “gefilmte Tanzperformance” hat mich bislang noch nie um den Schlaf gebracht und wird es auch in Zukunft nicht tun. Aber Upheaval ist eine gefilmte Tanzperformance der Lav-Diaz-Art. Eine Tanzperformance, in der die meiste Zeit gar nichts performt wird. Oder falls doch, dann ist dieses Performen nicht immer unterscheidbar vom ganz normalen Straßenleben einer philippinischen Großstadt. Die statische positioniert sich am Rand eines Flusses. Das Ufer wird im unaufdringlich symmetrisch gegliederten Bildausschnitt zur Bühne, die urbane Umgebung zum Publikum. Rechts der Fluss, links eine Straße, im Hintergrund Hochhäuser. Im Vordergrund sitzt zu Beginn eine Frau im weißen Kleid, im Mittelgrund sitzt eine andere auf einem nicht näher definierbaren Gestell und liest. Die Frau im Vordergrund beginnt zu tanzen, erst dreht sie sich, dann windet sie sich, wirft sich hin und her, das wirkt nicht direkt ekstatisch, aber doch ist das ein Tanz, der nicht organisch aus den Alltagsbewegungen entspringt. Nicht allzu lange tanzt sie so. Irgendwann verschwindet sie einfach aus dem Bild. Im Mittelgrund sitzt immer noch die lesende Frau. Viel mehr als lesen wird sie während der 45 Minuten, die Upheaval andauert, nicht machen. Der Kreditsequenz nach zu urteilen, gehört sie dennoch zu den Performern. Wenige Minuten nach dem Verschwinden der Tänzerin taucht ein Mann mit Gitarrenkoffer auf und setzt sich auf dasselbe Gestell, auf dem schon die lesende Frau sitzt. Er legt sich hin und scheint einzuschlafen. Und das ist dann der Hauptteil der Performance. Sie liest, er schläft, neben ihm liegt der Gitarrenkoffer. Aber natürlich ist das nicht alles. Im Hintergrund fahren Autos über eine Brücke, vorne fahren andere Wagen auf die Kamera zu, manchmal laufen Kinder direkt an ihr vorbei und blicken auch mal scheu in ihre Richtung. Die Performance ist zu Alltag zerflossen und wird sich schlißlich aus diesem heraus wieder neu konstituieren. Denn am Ende von Upheaval passiert noch einmal etwas und zwar nicht nur in dem Sinne, in dem bei Lav Diaz ohnehin immer etwas passiert. Was da aber in diesem Fall passiert, das sei hier nicht verraten.”

Butterflies Have no Memory (2009): Ein Versuch in der kurzen Form, entstanden im Rahmen des Jeonju Digital Projects. Auf cargo-online schreibe ich: “Ironischerweise ist Butterflies Have no Memories gerade wegen seiner überschaubaren Laufzeit ein äußerst ungünstiger Einstiegspunkt in Diaz’ Werk: Wer die Vorgängerwerke kennt, für den lädt sich jedes einzelne Bild mit zahllosen Assoziationen und Querverbindungen auf. Auf alle anderen muss der Film zwangsläufig einen unfertigen Eindruck machen. Bis zu einem gewissen Grad bleibt der Film in jedem Fall ein Mysterium. Auch hier machen bereits die ersten Minuten klar, in wessen Welt man sich befindet: Die erste Einstellung zeigt ein Gespräch in einem Cafe zwischen Mang Ferding, der Hauptfigur des Films und einem Freund, die Kamera ist schräg hinter den Figuren positioniert, das seitlich einfallende Sonnenlicht blendet, lässt das Gesicht der Hauptfigur verschwimmen und verleiht dem Film bereits hier etwas Apokalyptisches. Das Gespräch dreht sich um die Schließung einer Mine, die für das Dorf, in dem die beiden Gesprächspartner leben, lange Zeit die einzige Erwerbsquelle war. Im Mittelpunkt des Films steht zunächst Martha, eine junge Frau, die in ihrer Kindheit nach Kanada ausgewandert ist und nun ihr Heimatdorf besucht. Sie trifft auf alte Freunde und neue Verehrer, stolziert zwischen abgerissenen Hütten umher, fotografiert mal dies, mal das und spricht mit jedem, dem sie begegnet, in ihrem lupenreinen Englisch. Währenddessen sitzen der langhaarige Mang Ferding und seine beiden Begleiter, die eher Untergebene sind als Freunde (Mang ist eine in mancher Hinsicht ähnliche Figur wie der ehemalige Rebellenführer Julian aus Melancholia) auf der Straße und trinken. Nicht erst, als Mang Martha seine Waffensammlung zeigt, ahnt man, dass sie gut daran getan hätte, in Kanada zu bleiben. Butterflies Have no Memory leidet vor allem in den Anfangsszenen sichtlich unter seiner zeitlichen Beschränkung, unter dem Zwang, Plotpoints setzen zu müssen, die sich nicht organisch aus seinem Material ergeben. Erst als der Film die düstere, selbstzerstörerische Wendung nimmt, die im Grunde bereits in der ersten Szene angelegt ist, kommt er langsam zu sich selbst. Eine ganz und gar echte Lav-Diaz-Einstellung ist nur die allerletzte. Diese letzte Einstellung allerdings ist eine seiner bizarrsten und furchterregendsten überhaupt.”

From the blog, The Canine Condition

Melancholia

by Allan Fish

Just the night before first sitting down for the marathon sitting of Lav Diaz’s entire opus, I had been rewatching the flawed 1995 TV film England, My England, John Osborne’s final work detailing the life of Henry Purcell. It had the feel of a funeral, not just because of the use of Wendy Carlos’s reworking of the immortal Purcell ‘Funeral March of Queen Mary’ for A Clockwork Orange, but in addition to Osborne’s final work it was also the last performance of Robert Stephens as Dryden. So far, so how is this relevant?

And so it was that I took on Diaz’ masterpiece less than 24 hours later. A film that took me through a door that I thought had long closed and untouched since the heyday of Jacques Rivette. There had been long films since, films that would never be seen as commercial propositions, but Diaz was going further than anyone before. None of his films are on DVD, and this one wasn’t even his longest. It’s the only one I have been able to track down at the time of writing and is enough to convince me that he belongs in the higher echelons of cinematic visionaries still working today, with Lynch, Malick, Von Trier, Davies, Tarr, Haneke and Sokurov. All this from a film which could be argued as an oxymoron; the eight hour plea for cinematic minimalism.

Take three characters – a prostitute, a pimp and a nun – who live in the remote small town of Sagada in the Philippines. Their paths intersect at various points prior to their meeting in the ruins of an abandoned building one wet afternoon. What transpires is that these three people actually know each other and are enacting parts, escaping and withdrawing from a world which has become too painful following the assumed death of loved ones. The pimp Danny Boy is really writer Julian, the mastermind of the ‘process’, the prostitute Jenine is really Alberta, widow of a rebel and adopted mother to a girl, Hannah, who is close to falling into her own abyss. The nun is Rina, and she finally cracks, taking her own life and causing the other two to question their own mindsets.

Or that’s one take on it. Leaving aside the surface plot, just take in the detail, the pin-sharp monochrome hi-def photography, the deliberately natural sound which would make some dialogue inaudible but for subtitles, the way Spanish segues into English and back again, often in the same sentence, the way scenes don’t so much end as drift away before stopping abruptly. The camera barely moves, the characters moving slowly in and out of scenes so that the eye becomes quickly accustomed to examining the edges and far off distances of frames for characters or movement. Emotions are banished, exiled from the id, Julian organises sex shows for visiting tourists but the sex is at best mechanical, functionary, even tedious.

Stylistically, it probably owes most to Béla Tarr, while Diaz himself was obviously inspired by Lino Brocka (even the music is done by his own ‘group’, the Brockas). Still, though, we go back to Rivette, that ferryman across the Styx of the id to a Wonderland beyond even Lewis Carroll’s imagination. Diaz’s version is a forbidding place, where characters feel safer in the dark and light scares, where storm clouds, both figuratively and physically, gather overhead like vultures surveying carrion and any form of coping mechanism, or ‘process’ to use the euphemism of choice, is better than living with reality, even screwing men for money. While its creator, Julian, can be seen as a God, a Christ-figure who in one scene looks at first glance like he’s walking on water. The characters, especially in the opening reels, move as if in a trance and, suddenly as if hypnotised, I recall the words of Robert Stephens as Dryden the night before; “our world has disintegrated. We moved as in a dream, shadows without substance. Thus did our life become. ‘Tis all a cheat, yet fooled with hope men favoured the deceit. Trust on, and think tomorrow will repay, tomorrow’s falser than the former day.” Diaz’s film summed up, the sadness of the world as timeless as its joys.

From the blog Wonders in the Dark, July 18, 2010

Melancholia

Horacio Munoz Fernandez

Un sólo ser nos falta y todo está despoblado .


Desde hace ya unos años se esta produciendo un interesante "seísmo" cinematográfico en parte del suroeste asiático, como lo atestiguan cineastas con un indudable talento : el indonesio Garin Nugroho , el camboyano Rithy Panh , los malasios James Lee y Tan Chui Mui o los filipinos Raya Martin y Lav Diaz , entre otros muchos , que nos acercan propuestas interesantes, radicales y provocativas , que nada tienen que ver con el mero exotismo oriental o con la moda pasajera de unos cuantos nombres.

"¿Pero , cómo se puede sentir el tiempo de un plano?. La sensibilidad surge si tras el acontecimiento visible se hace patente una verdad determinada e importante. Cuando se reconoce clara y nítidamente que lo que se ve en ese plano no se agota en aquello que se representa visiblemente [...]". Desconozco si Lav Diaz es conocedor de cine Tarkovski o si ha leído Esculpir el tiempo , pero en Melancholia el director filipino lleva hasta al paróxismo muchos de los principios que cineasta soviético pusiera por escrito en su famoso libro.

Y es que el tiempo se convierte en un elemento fundamental de la película , no sólo por su duración 450 minutos, sino por la forma por la cual Diaz lo fija en su cámara ,estática la mayor parte de los momentos, recogiendo interminables "tiempos muertos", acciones cotidianas , silencios y esperas que no hacen más que desvelar el abatimiento y la tristeza de unos personajes que no consiguen superar la desaparición de sus seres queridos.

El sueño de Godard era hacer películas ficción que fueran como documentales , Lav Diaz consigue crearnos la sensación de estar asistiendo a lo que los documentalistas llamarían una película de carácter observacional, en muchos instantes parece imposible que lo que vemos sea un ficción , una representación orquestada por alguien, que los actores estén actuando o que exista un guión prefijado.


"Un sólo ser nos falta y todo está despoblado " decía Alphonse de Lamartine. Los personajes que circulan por Melancholia , transmiten un sentimiento de tristeza , de abatimiento , provocado por unas desapariciones de sus familiares y seres queridos , instigadas por un gobierno 5 años atrás que para eliminar culquier atisbo de oposición, había realizado una limpieza de disidentes. Nada parece dar consuelo al ni a Julian , ni a Alberta , personajes que que quieren ser otros para intentar superar la perdida y la desaparición de sus familiares. Que huyen de sus vidas para ólvidar el drama del que están presos. Pero el drama de los desaparecidos , es un luto permanente. Una melancolía que se acrecienta por lo inútil de la búsqueda , y el remordimiento de haber podido hacer algo más. Un remordimiento que no hace más que acrecentar la certeza de la irreversibilidad del tiempo.


Una mujer, canta a capela una desgarradora canción en medio de la selva:"El aire es frio, frío está el corazón,el cielo es frágil, la melodía se desvanece, yo te busco, te busco , te busco, cuando la noche llama y el calor se aplaca , toma este momento y recuérdalo siempre. El advenimiento del dolor, causado por la angustia, permanecerá a mi lado, un recuerdo de tu presencia." . Patricia la mujer de Julian , aparece como un fantasma ,por dos ocasiones recitando solitaria estos versos que bien pueden aparecer como sinópsis de esta monumental película.


PUBLICADO POR HORACIO MUÑOZ FERNÁNDEZ (from the blog La Primera Mirada)

Melancholia: Lav Diaz

Roberto Herrera

Existen películas y directores, hechas(os) en nombre de la libertad creativa y individual, que ignoran cualquier compromiso comercial que impere sobre el riesgo de su propuesta. En el primer día del festival se proyectó el film "Melancholia", realizado por el director filipino Lav Diaz, una pieza de 8 horas de duración que ya había sido premiado en la 65th mostra de Venecia, en la sección orizonti, y que en Rotterdam está seleccionado en la sección spectrum.

Es necesario un esfuerzo al analizar esta obra, para no caer en convencionalismos en el intento de clasificarla, pues al nominar en film como este, encuadrándole en un genero por ejemplo, seria el primer paso para tornarle más comercial. La palabra independiente ya es un síntoma de este tipo. Cuando hablamos de un cine hecho de forma libre, no es solo decir libre de lo comercial, pues seria más bien, libre de lo convencional, donde el único compromiso real es el del autor con su obra; del autor con el cine, y to lo que eso lleva implicado.

Estamos hablando de una película que podría ser muchas. Sus actores adoptan más de un personajes, entran y salen de la narración, viviendo en metamorfosis en otros caracteres, que se constituyen en una historia coral (al menos 3 líneas de narración son inseridas progresivamente, que mantienen lazos narrativos cada vez mas abstractos en la mediad que el tiempo transcurre). El momento crucial del film sería un dialogo consigo mismo que uno de los personajes (Renato) hace, mientras esta en floresta filipina luchando por la revolución de su país : "Porque hay tanta tristeza en este mundo? La felicidad es apenas un concepto? La vida del hombre es solamente un proceso para superar su dolor?”

En lo general, el film posee muy pocos diálogos, y ellos inseridos en acciones sencillas; como una persona buscando a otra por llamadas telefónicas (Julián a Alberta), o una monja que va por la calle pidiendo caridad ($$). El film se presenta sobre innumerables planos estáticos que al final se tornan secuencias estáticas. La estructura es: Un plano=Una acción interna=Una secuencia. Corte. Otro plano=Otra secuencia. Raramente el plano corta en la misma acción para resaltar una idea, o ver algún detalle, el concepto seria que exclusivamente a través de la larga duración del plano secuencia; el tiempo es suficiente para entender todos los detalles. De esta forma, cuanto más el tiempo se dilata, más la narración se abstrae, y como en que en un sueño los personajes van cambiando de cara, creando en el espectador una experiencia multi facial. Este dialogo que lo he citado, lo que seria el leitmotiv del film, ha sido dicho en la hora 7, después de un largo trayecto de los personajes metamórficos.. La estructura formal también mencionada, quedó bastante familiar después de las 8 horas, algo que me resultó en una gran dificultad al visionar otra película después de esta.

Una de las constataciones cinematográficas que "Melancholia" puede generar, es que se trata de un film absolutamente riguroso y conceptual, dado que el estricto estatismo formal vs movimiento interno, se mantiene fiel del primer minuto hasta al final de las 8 horas. Cual seria entonces el concepto del riguroso encuadre estático de la cámara de Lav Diaz? Son muchas las posibles respuestas para esta pregunta teórica; quizás demasiada personal para que un director se nos cuente, tanto que cuando entrevistamos a Lav Diaz, y le preguntamos sobre que el considera entonces un movimiento de cámara, su respuesta a sido a la no teoría de su cine; y que la libertad debe predominar por encima de cualquier concepto cerrado. Si Lav Diaz se pregunta si la felicidad es un concepto, lo hace seguro que la libertad que tiene para preguntarse, no lo es.

From the blog Imagemtexto

Evolution of a Filipino Family

By Raya Martin

Everything is told, but nothing was ever written.

The decade closed like a baffling movie ending: film critics Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc were shot dead during a robbery in the former’s home in Manila. In addition to being one of the few defenders of true independent cinema in the region, Tioseco was also the greatest supporter of Lav Diaz, the Philippines’ standard-bearer of so-called contemplative cinema (or cinema of comatose, as Noel Vera puts it) and arguably the country’s most important working filmmaker. Yet his death also came at a time when the most recognized contemporary Filipino director, Brillante Mendoza, had just won the Best Director award at Cannes for Kinatay (2009), lamentably cementing the country’s identity as a purveyor of “poverty porn.”

Unlike Mendoza, who is a direct heir of Lino Brocka, Diaz’s references are more diverse. His films are founded in comic magazine literature (which Diaz wrote for in his early days), played in the style of traditional local melodrama, and strengthened by knowledge of foreign literature and film (Dostoevsky, Tarkovsky, Tarr). The result is like nothing else in Philippine cinema: part history class, part film history, and pure cinema. Batang West Side (2001), the first film outside his studio career and the first in what has now become his signature aesthetic, is a formidable example. The film is a crime story without any shoot-outs, a melodrama without the histrionics, yet everything is so very familiar, so Filipino that it would cover the gaps in our country’s best works: the thrillers of Mike De Leon, sophisticated ensembles by Ishmael Bernal, even Brocka’s social-realist tales.

Even after five epic works, varying in length from five to 12 hours, Evolution of a Filipino Family still stands as Diaz’s canonical achievement. Filmed from early 1994 to late 2004 and accompanied by a dynamic post-production, the film follows neither a traditional studio method nor the organic process of a Kidlat Tahimik, whose cinema is propelled by spontaneous ideas and intuitively constructed from hours of celluloid and video footage, whichever was available at the moment. By contrast, Diaz’s embrace of spontaneity and chance collaborates with the presence of a script, which he sometimes constructs a night before shooting depending on previously organized casting and locations.

Set during the martial rule of the Marcos regime, Evolution of a Filipino Family follows Raynaldo, an orphan rescued from a garbage dump by the mentally ill Gilda, who is soon after raped and murdered. Taken in by Gilda’s brother Kadyo, the boy is confronted by a grandmother who constantly blames everyone for their misfortunes, an uncle’s involvement with the rebels and the underworld, and granddaughters forced to work for their survival.

In a decade where veteran filmmakers were often more progressive than their younger counterparts, Lav Diaz preserved the spirit of local storytelling. Though reliant on a traditional narrative structure, Diaz’s cinema distends it drastically—not as aesthetic experiment, but in pursuit of a certain truth. Diaz claims that the sense of time in his films is based on that of rural people, and our repulsion (or admiration) lies in the fact that this truth is far distant from ours. Evolution then becomes a simple, honest reminder about cinema: whose story to tell, and how to tell it.

Diaz’s film is a selfless act of love, an achievement all the more exceptional in light of the fact that it was made on Third World soil, where cinema is condemned to the multiplexes and the hands of studio producers. It is an urgent film where an immediate audience does not matter; only when one comes to realize and accept the filmmaker’s generosity will he be able to fully appreciate the gift. Evolution’s grandeur is simple: it mirrors those complexities of our history that affect our people’s often misunderstood attitudes and ambitions. And much like the film, much like ourselves, the evolution remains unfinished.

From Cinema Scope, A Decade In Review

LIVING TIME, SURVIVING TIME

An Overview of the Life and Films of Lav Diaz

By Jan Philippe V. Carpio

“I could never really believe that any artist could work only for himself, if he knew what he was doing would never be needed by anybody.”

“The only condition of fighting for the right to create is faith in your own vocation, readiness to serve, and refusal to compromise. Artistic creation demands of the artist that he ‘perish utterly’, in the full tragic sense of those words.”
 Andrei Tarkovsky

Unang Bahagi: Ang Alamat ni Taga Timog (Part One: The Legend of From the South)


Even though a once reliable memory betrays me for the exact details, some years back, somewhere in between films, some time after midnight, under roof or moonlight, perhaps over coffee (for at the time and until recently, he had sworn off taking any alcohol), Lav Diaz, the streaks of white much lesser then than they are now on his long, dark, rock star hair with or sans ponytail, narrowed his eyes that reveal a calm intensity as well as a deep sadness all at once for all they have witnessed and recorded up to that point, in a soft, low voice that reminds one of something encased in rubber and fuzz – but not at all artificial or unpleasant – said to me, “Filmmaking … It’s war man.”

Like any young person not wishing to displease someone he admires and looks up to, I nodded my head in agreement. Like any young person wishing to appear older and wiser beyond my years, I nodded my head as if I understood.

Nodding my head in agreement is pretty much all I am certain of to be true then since all I understood was the concept of the words, but it was only years later that, after my own experiences of bombardment, that I learned, in my own way, where their blood could be found spilled.

Southern Beginnings

Looking back at Diaz’s own beginnings, the statement relating filmmaking and war seems apt. He was born in Datu Paglas, Maguindanao, Mindanao, Philippines on December 30, 1958, the day Philippine National Hero Jose Rizal was executed by Spanish colonizers in 1896. One of the largest islands in the world, where the southernmost regions and provinces in the Philippines are located, Mindanao holds a paradoxical and misunderstood place in the country’s history and daily life. It is perhaps the greatest representation of the country’s undeniable multiethnic, multicultural background – composed of numerous indigenous tribes, ethnic groups, Christians and Muslims – but at the same time containing the long standing prejudices, and at times, deep hatred of each group for the other. One of the deepest centers for the country’s spirituality – indigenous, Christian and Muslim – it is also the site of numerous ethnic, political, religious and clan wars that have claimed many lives over the generations. Much of its natural life sustaining beauty is ironically preserved from commercial exploitation by this very situation of peace and order. It has a long and proud history of its people successfully fighting off Spanish and American colonizers, while more recently Muslim separatists have waged one of the world’s longest wars against the national government. Touted as the country’s food basket, it is also where some of the country’s poorest provinces are located, and a long history of being unfairly neglected by the national government when it comes to infrastructure development and distribution of resources. Containing areas in the country with the most potential for growth and development, it has also become a strategic military location and power playground for both the Philippine and American governments. Mindanao is an essential part of the country, but sadly, for the most part, for many of the citizens from the other parts of the Philippines, “what happens in Mindanao – the violence, the bloodshed, the suffering – stays in Mindanao. It has nothing to do with me.” All this seemed to change – albeit temporarily – last November 23, 2009 when Maguindanao became the site of the horrific Ampatuan Massacre. An electoral motorcade of around 60 people that included a local Muslim gubernatorial candidate’s wife and female family members, drivers, journalists and lawyers were on their way to file his certificate of candidacy at a nearby town. There were also a number of motorists who were not part of the motorcade driving behind them. Before they could reach their destination, they were stopped and pulled off the road by a large force of armed men, a private army allegedly under the command of the province’s reputed warlords, the Ampatuan family. (The Ampatuans are political rivals of the Mangudadatu family who were on their way to file the certificate of candidacy.) The private army was also allegedly in collusion with members of local law enforcement and the military. The victims were taken to a hill some distance from the road, horribly mutilated, shot and hastily buried along with their vehicles. National and international condemnation of the murders was so swift and intense that it pressured President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration – who has deep personal and political ties with the Ampatuan clan – to arrest their members and put them on trial. In an e-mail to writer Jessica Zafra regarding the massacre, Diaz wrote,

“Maguindanao… ang hirap, ang sakit. I’m numbed. Puro iyak at galit na lang ang nagagawa natin.” (Maguindanao… it’s so difficult, it’s so painful. I’m numbed. All we can do is grieve and be angry) (Zafra, 2009).

As a young man, Diaz had witnessed first hand the full price of loss from these conflicts when in 1971, while in high school in Maguindanao, a war erupted between Christians and Muslims where “he saw friends from both faiths killing each other.” The Diaz family became refugees and were forced to relocate away from the conflict to the town of Tacurong in the province of Cotabato (Manrique, 2006). In an interview with the late film critic Alexis Tioseco (2006), Diaz also recounted the deep wounds caused by the declaration of Martial Law in 1972 by the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and how this exacerbated the growing armed conflict in the region.

“I grew up during the Martial Law years. And my experience of Martial Law was very brutal. I was in second year high school when Marcos declared [Republic Act] 1081 upon the land. In Cotabato, the year before the imposition, the pent-up tensions between the Muslims and Christians had exploded into a full-scale war. It was bloody, very bloody, terrifying, horrifying. And it became bloodier during Marcos’ reign of terror. While Christians and Muslims were on a rampage butchering one another left and right, the military entered the scene with an even unheard of fascistic fierceness and cruelty. They’d set up checkpoints in all directions; they’d hamlet communities; they’d be declaring so many areas as no-man’s lands and shooting any person seen at will, no questions asked.”

These experiences of conflict, violence, death, pain and suffering, and living up to their responsibilities and consequences would later become an integral part of Diaz’s life and work. Despite the extreme difficulties, Diaz’s parents, both pioneer public school teachers of Datu Paglas, worked hard to properly raise Lav and his siblings. The third of three sons and one daughter, he seemed almost centrally cast at birth as the perfect filmmaker to record and investigate “the nature of the Filipino soul”. Even though he was born and raised in Mindanao, his late father Mario Vigilia Diaz was an Ilocano (an ethnic group from the northernmost part of Luzon island), while his mother Maria Linis Indico Diaz is an Ilonggo (an ethnic group from the middle group of islands of the Visayas). By blood, culture and residence, Diaz embodies his country’s multiethnic and multicultural background. Sharing Diaz’s Ilonggo ethnic heritage, I recall a humorous story he told me from his childhood that illustrates the ethnic and cultural differences between his parents. It was some time in the evening in Datu Paglas. The Diaz family was spending a relaxing evening at home, when suddenly, the silence of the night was disturbed by the sounds of “Tiktiktiktiktik!” coming from somewhere outside. (In Philippine culture, the tiktik sound indicates the presence in the vicinity of an aswang – one of the many types of Philippine supernatural beings that feast on human flesh and blood. Although belief in aswangs is prevalent all over the country, according to Diaz, their mythological origins can be traced back to the Visayas.) Upon hearing the sounds, his mother began setting fire to small pieces of tire rubber. (This gives off a smell that reportedly drives away the aswangs.) She then grabbed a bolo (Filipino machete), ran outside, and began screaming into the darkness in the Ilonggo language for the aswang to leave them alone or die. Instead of joining her outside, Diaz’s father merely shook his head and remarked to Lav in the Ilocano language something like, “There goes your crazy mother again.” Whereas his mother’s devout Catholic faith and strong spirituality may have played a part in influencing the spiritual nature of Diaz’s films, he credits his public school supervisor father for instilling in him a love for the film medium itself. During weekends, his father would bring the children to urban center of the province where they would “watch up to eight movies in movie houses that had double features” (Manrique, 2006).

“My father was really a ‘film maniac’," says Diaz. "We would watch all the movies on Saturday and Sunday, and then we would sleep in the bus station. My mother would be mad at my father because we had mosquito bites all over. That was really my early education on cinema.” (Manrique, 2006).

“Subliminally, my father was my film mentor. He is the quintessential cinephiliac. We were living in the middle of a forest in a far-flung village in Cotabato, Mindanao, but every weekend or [on] holidays we’d never miss [going to] the cinemas. There were four cinemas then in a nearby town, about two hours’ drive from the village, and they’d always show double bills and we’d watch them all and we’d talk about them after watching. And my parents are bookworms and storytellers and teachers. They read and read and read. My father was very much into Russian literature. They are very industrious and giving. So, yes, the dialectics and dynamics of that milieu have had lasting impact on my cinema and my view of this world” (Tioseco, 2006).
His father’s love of “ … Russian literature and all things Russian …” led to Diaz’s own love affair with Russian artists who became his artistic heroes like the great writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the filmmaker he holds above all others, Andrei Tarkovsky. (Manrique, 2006). Once, while attending a film festival in Russia, some of his hosts, upon discovering his full first name was Lavrente, their eyes wide with shock, asked him if he knew what it really meant. He replied that he was well aware that his father had named him after Lavrentiya Beriya (the infamous head of the Soviet Union’s NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB) (www.wikipedia.org). Perhaps a touch of ironic humor from his father aside, from the beginning, in the world Diaz grew up in, art eventually could have been perceived in three ways: one, as completely irrelevant in the face of horror, two, as an escape from the difficulties and conflicts of life, and three, as a way to make sense of the madness of life and somehow initiate a process of healing. Fortunately, from the beginning, Diaz had chosen to act upon the third more essential and deeper purpose. Healer and psychic Bong De La Torre once profoundly declared that for the islands and islands groups that make up the Philippine archipelago, Luzon is the mind, Visayas is the heart, while Mindanao is the belly where the fire rages. The same might be said of Diaz’s works which attempt to and have succeeded in combining all representative organs and their energies into one functioning organism of art, one film at a time. For a long time though, it was the fire from the conflicts in Mindanao and his early years there that had left their burn scars on Diaz’s life.

“I was stricken with paralysis when I was about eight years old and I couldn’t walk for more than a year. I struggled to relearn how to walk and when I was finally able to walk, I had to deal with a very dysfunctional body motor system—the pain in the bones of the left side of my body, particularly the left foot, remains a recurring problem until today, especially in severe cold and humid conditions. The trauma and shock and stigma stayed with me for so long. It was hell, I tell you” (Tioseco, 2006).

As a young adult, the war and the violence and suffering being experienced by friends and family there continued to afflict his thoughts. In order to be near to the scene of the tragedy, he decided to transfer from the Jesuit-run Ateneo De Manila University to its sister school back in Mindanao, Ateneo De Davao. Unfortunately, fraternity troubles caused him to get expelled. He enrolled at Notre Dame University in Cotabato where he eventually finished a degree in Economics (Manrique, 2006). Based on a lot of filmmakers’ personal histories, it seems a rare occurrence that one decides at a young age to become a filmmaker as one might plan to pursue other professions like doctor, lawyer, teacher. As Tarkovsky once declared, you should not choose cinema, it is cinema that chooses you. Diaz was no different. He originally wanted to become a musician and he pursued his dream vigorously by playing guitar in a band during his university years.

“The nascent Cotabato music scene embraced folk, rock, and eventually punk and Diaz, who was already composing songs by then—in English, Pilipino, Ilonggo and Maguindanao—formed a group called Cotabato. The band played local gigs, for which each member was paid P25 a night, along with a free burger and beer. Their goal was to make it to the rough and tumble Mecca of Pinoy rock, Olongapo City. The game plan was to immerse themselves in the ’Gapo club scene, get good and become the next Juan de la Cruz Band” (Caruncho, 2008).

Like a lot of university students in the Philippines, Diaz took Economics not out of personal choice, but as a way of fulfilling his parents’ wishes. Upon completing his degree, the next step would have been returning to Manila to take up music at the University of the Philippines. All this changed when he got married during his third year in college (Manrique, 2006). Based on the discouraging socioeconomic conditions in the Philippines then and at present, and unless one comes from a higher socioeconomic class (usually the elite), if choosing to take the path of the artist is extremely difficult to begin with, choosing this path while trying to raise a family at the same time is rare and usually at a tremendous personal cost, if not impossible at times. In his article on Diaz for the Sunday Inquirer magazine, writer Eric S. Caruncho (2008) recounts an incident one evening where after coming home from a band gig with the usual P25 honorarium (USD 1.84 as of the latest exchange rate), Diaz ended up smashing his fake Gibson guitar to pieces after getting into a terrible fight with his wife.

“Of course I regretted it the next morning, but it was too late. I lost interest in the band. I had a child, got a job. I got interested in literature, and then cinema. But I never stopped writing songs and poems. I can’t stop writing songs and poems—they’re the easiest for me to write” (Caruncho, 2008).

While trying to eke out a living for his family in Mindanao, his detour into writing paid off somewhat when one of his literary works won the Philippine equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize, the Palanca Award. Temporarily abandoning his musician dreams, Diaz set out to find the difficult balance between his personal artistic dreams and his domestic responsibilities as a husband and father.

“Manila, Manila, I keep coming back to Manila …”

In the 1980s, the final side in his love triangle of art came calling for him across the islands and seas when he decided to move his family to Manila to pursue filmmaking (Caruncho, 2008). While attending scriptwriting workshops under legendary screenwriter Ricky Lee who wrote several of the classic films from the Second Golden Age of Philippine Cinema – the generation of Lino Brocka – Diaz took on several jobs to support his family. He became a journalist for two tabloids, People’s Journal and Taliba, and later wrote for two television programs: Balintataw, a drama program, and Batibot, a children’s show. Lee eventually recommended him and two other workshops classmates to take filmmaking workshops at the Mowelfund Film Institute (Manrique, 2006). Most of the universities at the time did not offer filmmaking as a degree course and apart from the long and arduous process of “working your way up” in the commercial film industry to become a director, government grants from the film fund of the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, the only other avenue was the Mowelfund Film Institute. Diaz began attending workshops at Mowelfund in 1983, the year that fierce Marcos critic and hero Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino was assassinated as he stepped down from his flight from the U.S.A. onto the tarmac of the Manila airport (Caruncho, 2008). This prompted the largest funeral in Philippine history as well as encouraged further protests against the Marcos regime. His workshop facilitators included filmmakers of repute such as Raymond Red, Nick Deocampo and Christoph Janetzko. In one of the workshop seminars for scriptwriting, Diaz encountered National Artist for Film Lamberto Avellana who earned his reputation during the First Golden Age of Philippine Cinema. This meeting led to a memorable stint with the legendary filmmaker where Diaz gained much knowledge and inspiration on film, art and life in his search for his own personal aesthetics. He completed two short films at Mowelfund. The first film Banlaw was shot on Super 8 in 1985. The three minute film focuses on an early ancestor of the prototypical Diaz character: a good but deeply flawed man suffering from the terrible burden of a world gone mad on his shoulders decides to commit an ultimate act of sacrifice. In this case, a young man inspired by a television broadcast of a young Buddhist burning himself decides to walk naked and kill himself on the streets of Metro Manila in protest of the injustices committed by the Marcos regime. The second film “Step No, Step Yes” was shot on video in 1988 (Tioseco, 2006). Diaz’s recounted the experience of the “Step No, Step Yes” shoot:

“We shot three weekends in the squatters’ area in Pasay City called Leveriza, a very dangerous place then. On the last day of our shoot, a man was killed over an argument of his supposed nonpayment of a two-peso turon 5he ate. Bloody and scary, but we finished the shoot” (Tioseco, 2006).

More than the narrative that revolved around a peeping tom and a prostitute, Diaz’s account of the shoot seems to indicate the beginnings of his attraction for using technically and physically dangerous conditions and locations as valid but risky means for creating his art. The evidence of this artistic embrace of real danger continues to be present in his later work like shooting in the dead of winter for Batang Westside where the 35mm film camera gears would freeze, the dynamite blasting gold hunt scenes in Ebolusyon, shooting in actual typhoons and thunderstorms for scenes in Heremias and Melancholia, and the physical aftermath of super typhoon devastation along the slopes of the active Mayon Volcano in Death in the Land of the Encantos. (This affinity for extreme creative conditions – albeit on a technically smaller and more natural scale – Diaz seems to share with German New Wave filmmaker Werner Herzog.) In 1986, the Marco Dictatorship fell after the EDSA People Power Revolution. The Marcos family and most of their cronies fled the country. They returned later in the 1990s and exploited the Filipino people’s collective amnesia to unfortunately re-establish a significant amount of their fallen power and influence. By the late 1980s, Diaz was at least partially living his filmmaking dreams, but even while attending eye opening film workshops, gaining knowledge and experience from working with his classmates and mentors, artistic, professional, financial and personal difficulties continued to tear at him.

“Those were different times,” he recalls. “We were living on Basilio St. in España. There was no digital video then. There were 40 of us in Mowelfund fighting over the one 16mm camera. There were seven 8mm cameras but no film. If you were rich you could buy film but a roll of 16mm film was 80 dollars. It was a dead end” (Caruncho, 2008).

“… and even super 8 rolls were kind of expensive, to thrive as a filmmaker meant to go mainstream, the so-called ‘industry.’ And you know, the industry is the status quo and the culture there is very feudal. They protect their turf, they are wary of newcomers especially if you’re ‘schooled’. To break in was hardcore. That’s an understatement; I mean, it is really, really hard. More often, it’s more of swallowing your pride and accepting compromise as a norm. And if you didn’t know anybody, the only route was to write scripts and show them to people or enter them in competitions” (Tioseco, 2006).

Diaz’s first frustrating encounters with mainstream commercial filmmaking came with an assistant director stint for a Gil Portes film shot in the U.S.A., being one of a duo of writers chosen to work for the “King of Philippine Movies” Fernando Poe, Jr., and a comedy for Regal films. After his project at Regal ended, he decided to stop working in the commercial filmmaking milieu (Tioseco, 2006). Apart from the lack of proper film resources and venues, Diaz’ health began failing due to a deteriorating lung condition discovered by chance during a medical examination for one of his job applications. His treatment of heavy medication took a great toll on him physically and mentally.

“… for six months there was this very strict daily injection and popping of so many pills and tablets and liquids. The doctor warned me that if my lungs weren’t ‘cleared’ after the sixth month, there was a possibility that it would slide into lung cancer. I was high everyday, seeming to float when walking; my skin felt thick, numbed and itchy; sounds in my ears were muffled and magnified; my thoughts would go high speed and slow motion and backward and forward and up and down and east-to-west-to-north-to-south. I could walk for hours, I could go motionless for hours, I could be staring at a cockroach for half a day, people would look weird, my writing bordered on dementia, it was a crazy period. And Mowelfund was located then at the basement of the creepy Manila Bay Film Center of Imelda Marcos. Heard of the stories of the hundreds of workers buried alive there so that the ‘Madame’ could dance with George Hamilton on time, listen to the Russian piano prodigy and sing “Dahil sa ‘Yo” on a yacht going to Corregidor? Imelda is the supreme magic realist being” (Tioseco, 2006).

At that point in his life, Diaz felt physically and emotionally burned out. On top of everything, there was also the constant difficulty of providing proper living conditions for his family. A bleak situation he graphically describes with mixed emotions:

“In Manila, I had reached a dead-end. I was practically killing myself working in newspapers, my last [job] being a deskman in a Tagalog tabloid, and [I was also] submitting scripts in television serials, writing unproduced screenplays, writing scripts for komiks6. I was a book salesman while studying law; I wrote serious stuff that won Palancas; I won screenwriting and essay writing contests. But for what, my family was starving. We lived in Krus na Ligas, a squatters’ area inside UP Diliman, cramped in a tiny, rented room; we had to sleep in one small bed, the five of us—my wife and my three kids—we had to put chairs on the edges to keep our feet from dangling and be bitten to smithereens by ghetto mosquitoes and rats. All I could do was curse in silence while looking at my friends from film school shooting while I was working as a full-time family man. I didn’t regret being a family man because I love my children very much but like I said, we were at a dead-end; there was no relief in sight. And there was no digital then. At some point, I thought I could never do my films. Abandoning music was already a very painful experience (I destroyed my guitar and burned all my songs) and if I were to abandon cinema, I didn’t know what I would do. I couldn’t afford to kill my soul twice” (Tioseco, 2006).

“… If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere …”


Diaz’s situation in the Philippines had deteriorated to the point of frustration and despair till one of his film works became the unplanned catalyst for a new direction and a new location in his life.

“I arrived in New York on the 21st of July 1992. Fate brought me there. It wasn’t planned at all. A commissioned video documentary I did on the street kids of Manila was invited to participate in a multimedia exhibit-tour of key areas of the US. When I got to New York, a Filipino newspaper invited me to be part of their staff. I stayed and worked as one of their editors. New York provided me some freedom, aesthetically and economically. My decision to live in New York has been all about pursuing greater heights for my art while liberating my family from the clutches of poverty” (Tioseco, 2006).

Aside from the video documentary on Manila street kids, Diaz later “confessed” that his first film from Mowelfund Banlaw also played an important part in helping him get some footing in the New York art scene – albeit in a more “unofficial” capacity than the documentary.

“Time to ask forgiveness from Mowelfund: I stole the only copy [of Banlaw] before I left for the US in 1992. My act wasn’t deliberate though. I visited Mowelfund and I saw our works scattered on this long table. I mean, the films were scattered there—16s, super 8s, video tapes—and you know Mowelfund then, the doors were open twenty-four hours, and people were coming in and out, stoned, drunk, gaudy, haughty, hungry, horny and totally fucked up, or fucking each other, and spaced out. I saw Banlaw lying on the edge. It was actually on the edge of the table in its utter blackness and smallness, and a slight push would push it to oblivion. I was scared; I might as well get hold of it; I reckoned I would return it in better times. I grabbed it and slipped it in my bag. When I got to New York, it helped me connect with the struggling independents in the East Village; I have this badge, [this] little crude film to show them. It even saved me from going hungry; we’d do underground showings of shorts, in basements literally, and ask for donations. I kept transferring. I lost it in the process, in one of the basements in Jersey City, I believe” (Tioseco, 2006).

His wife and children eventually joined him in New York in 1997.

“The interim five years in New York, before he was joined by his family, Diaz considers as “defining years.” “[Being in New York] was an accident, but it was also fortunate because, there, my perspective on cinema was solidified: that one should never compromise,” says Diaz. He stayed in East Village, a virtual commune of “struggling artists,” hobnobbing with such people as Jonathan Larson, the creator of the musical Rent. To complete his apprenticeship, he buried himself in film books and attended film retrospectives whenever he could, learning from such masters as Welles, Tarkovsky, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and Bresson” (Manrique, 2006).

It was at film screenings at New York’s famous art house theaters like the Film Forum where the further reaches and possibilities of cinematic expression began opening themselves up to him. Apart from his deep and almost religious devotion to Andrei Tarkovksy – whose works he claims to memorize by heart even though at one time owning only un-subtitled VHS PAL copies of the films – he also shared with me a personal first encounter he had with one of the works of the patron saint of independent filmmaking, the filmmaker I hold above all others, John Cassavetes. Sometime in between the years of his arrival and his family’s arrival in U.S., loneliness overcame him and he went out for a walk. He eventually found himself inside the familiar space of a movie theater watching a film by a filmmaker that he had never heard of. The filmmaker was John Cassavetes and the title of the film was “A Woman Under the Influence”. The film’s harrowing and compassionate emotional scenes completely crushed Diaz and helped illuminate many of his personal problems regarding his family that he missed terribly at the time. Like his experiences viewing Lino Brocka’s Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Light) and Tarkovsky’s works, “A Woman Under the Influence” reinforced his belief in the affective and transformative powers of cinema. Later, he told me in half laughter and half seriousness that to this day, despite the questions and incredulous looks of his guests, he keeps his copy of “A Woman Under the Influence” under the horror section of his film collection in New York. He channeled his renewed passion for filmmaking by embarking on several film projects, one of which would eventually become Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino which he began shooting in 1994. At one point, apart from his main job at the newspaper, he supplemented his income by working as a waiter and gas station attendant to help fund his film productions. Although the situation seemed to be improving for him in the U.S., during his first year in New York, unbeknownst to Diaz, tragedy had befallen his family back in the Philippines. Olivia, his only sister, perished in a car crash at the age of 31. His eventual knowledge of the accident, and deep shock over his sister’s passing put his own life into grave perspective.

"I was sitting on a bench in New York, one snowy day, and had lived, until then, the bohemian life. I had just gotten the news that my sister died. They had buried her without telling me. There and then, I realized that life is short. Just do what you have to do. Just put everything into praxis” (Manrique, 2006).

His re-immersion into life translated not only in his art but also his lifestyle as he became a vegetarian and completely gave up vices like drugs, alcohol and smoking (Manrique, 2006). Beginning from Batang Westside onwards, his production company Sine Olivia is perhaps named in homage to his late sister. A deeper homage to her can also perhaps be found in the character of the Hilda Gallardo, the insane woman whose rape and murder her son Reynaldo avenges but continues to be haunted by in Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino. Loss, though still ultimately lacking in the end, can perhaps find no better tribute than in art. An insight that would eventually find itself pushed past even the extreme limits of memoriam in Diaz’s subsequent films.

Jan Philippe “JP” V. Carpio is a writer, filmmaker, performer and teacher living and creating in Metro Manila, Philippines.


Bibliography

Caruncho, E. S. (2008, October 12). To Hell and Back with Lav Diaz. Sunday Inquirer Magazine. Retrieved February 18, 2010 from http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/sim/sim/view/20081012-165978/To-Hell-and-Back-with-Lav-Diaz
Manrique, D. (2006, September 17). Lav Diaz: A Portrait of the Artist as a Filmmaker. from http://www.pinoyfilm.com/lav-diaz-a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-filmmaker

Tioseco, A. (2006, January 30). A Conversation with Lav Diaz: Indictment and Empowerment of the Individual: The Modern Cinema of Lav Diaz. Retrieved February 19, 2010 from http://criticine.co /interview_article.php?id=21
Zafra, J. (2009, December 22). Lav Diaz, filmmaker from Maguindanao, on Maguindanao. from http://www.jessicarulestheuniverse.com/2009/12/22/lav-diaz-filmmaker-from-maguindanao-on-maguindanao/

Wikipedia. (2009, December 2). from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lav_Diaz
Wikipedia. (2010, February 12). from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrentiy_Beria

The article is from The Auteurs (http://www.theauteurs.com/topics/7900)