Weblog S.E.A. Eyes, August 2004
photo: still from Ebolusyon (Evolution) by Lav Diaz (Philippines, 2004)
by Gertjan Zuilhof
A sore ass. Sometimes that's what you get from watching films that demand something of you. Open eyes. A broad (minded) look. A relaxed soul. It's all very important, but if a film maker or programmer decides that the sit has to last longer than a normal working day, then seeing a film or a programme is also a physical challenge. An effort. Or a hindrance that not everyone wants to take.
For instance, several years ago a jury member at the Filipino Cinemanila Festival refused to see and judge Batang (Westside) by Lav Diaz - yes, I'll come back to him later, there is every reason to - because the film lasted more than five hours. It's a good thing that this respected European connoisseur of Asian cinema was not in the jury this year, because Diaz' latest film Ebolusyon Ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino (Evolution of a Filipino Family) was to last nine hours.
Diaz was still in the cutting room at the start of the Cinemanila Festival this year, evoking the rumour that the film was not going to be less than ten hours long. And to avoid unnecessary tension: I saw the (rough cut of) the film from start to finish even though Diaz didn't make it in time for the festival in the end. Then I was back in Amsterdam, where he wrote to me about how the film he had worked on off and on for the last nine years (in the meantime he made six other films) had slowly been eaten up by the ghostly software of his editing computer, which was probably not up to the task in hand.
And this year's festival started too late. Elections. New officials. Overtime for the censors. Promises by a mayor. I didn't even try to understand the background and, after some organising, I withdrew to my hotel room with the rough cut of the new long Diaz. It soon became clear to me that this was something very special.
Ebolusyon... is a film with the epic appeal of Bernardo Bertolucci's Novecento or Edgar Reitz' Heimat and the cinematographic austerity of Wang Bing's Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks or even Claude Lanzmann's Shoah. The film looks at the recent turbulent and often cruel history of the Philippines from the 1970s based on a distressing family story. Poor peasants who gradually and inevitably turn into poor city dwellers in the course of the story.
This is not the first time in the history of film or literature that a family tragedy is used to encapsulate the historic and political tragedy of a whole country, but this is without doubt the greatest film narrative about the sorrow of the Philippines. Diaz tells his story in an austere and very cinematographic style. In black & white. With long shots made with an often static camera. Sometimes the dialogue is so sparse that the result approaches silent film. Occasionally it is so realistic that the word documentary would not be out of place. He does not set out to please the spectator. Far from it. And the unpolished and partly incomplete version I saw places its own demands on the viewer. But, as they say, it's all worth it in the end. Now let's hope that the damage wrought in Diaz' computer is not too final.
An elegant sufficiency of short films seen one after the other can also give you a sore ass. And because it is really many short sessions and you can't drown in a long river of film, the ass can get pretty sore before you complain. Chalida Uabumrungjit, driving force behind Thai independent cinema and organiser of the Bangkok Short Film Festival, arranged several such trials of a sore ass for her festival.
In marathon screenings, all the Thai submissions were shown in public before a selection was made. As a result, in two days I saw about a hundred short Thai films in the beautiful Thai Cultural Centre and was instantly cured of the idea that this would be a nice event for other festivals. The remote control is an essential weapon when battling the excess of festival submissions. Or a stroll out of the cinema into the network of courtyards and pergolas where hundreds of children were taught the noble principles of Thai dance and music. One day, one of these children will make a nice film, one hopes. To paraphrase Coppola.
After two days, it became apparent that I had seen five pretty good short films, one of which was very special. Not a bad yield really. The special film is called To Infinity and Beyond and is only ten minutes long, despite its title. In those ten minutes, the images are also used twice. A group of people outdoors in a field gaze intently at the sky. Filmed in a documentary way in a measured and idiosyncratic frame. Intertitles suggest a major cosmic event. But that is the text. Pleasantly puzzling, such a film among so much unavoidable vulgarity. The maker was the assistant to Apichatpong Weerasethakul, I heard later. I shall let you know his name as soon as I can get the Thai characters deciphered.