98/100

Filmed over a span of 10 years, running over a period of 10 hours, illuminating the unseen face of a nation spread across its past, present and projected future, this is Evolution of a Filipino Family. This is Lav Diaz. This is cinema at its most potent, mined to its extremes and exploited like never before, fixing a hard gaze on the neglected and abused―the lowest strata of civilized society―like nothing has ever dared to.

Even if the film starts off by following a farming clan trudging along the fields under a glaring sun, it is soon made clear that the 'Filipino family' in the title refers also to the history of the larger nationwide family, made up of…

An intimate Filipino epic shot and created over the course of nine to eleven years, Lav Diaz's Evolution of a Filipino Family is the longest film I've ever seen in my whole life just yet, with a runtime of 643 minutes (10 hours and 43 minutes to be exact). This is also my first film from Lav Diaz and it's funny to think that I chose his longest film as my first introduction to his overly lengty slow burn filmography.

In its almost 11-hour runtime, we get to see the struggles and collapse of a particular poor Filipino farming clan that was meant to represent our very own country, the Philippines, and the ultimate downfall of its identity during the…

Why is it that really long films tend to be so good? I think it's because they tend to be comprehensive and take the time to properly explore their themes and ideas. Any director who expects their audience to sit and watch a film for so long clearly assumes their audience expects to be challenged intellectually and emotionally. Lav Diaz knows this more than most, judging by his love for long cinema. Evolution of a Filipino Family is such a long film that 3 hours in you still have the length of Sátántangó to go. It is a singular experience to say the least. It is so incredibly slow, as the camera often doesn't move and often nothing will happen…

Thus is the conflict of slow cinema at its most fully embraced. The criticisms are rooted in making the film more compact, more accessible, and easier. There may be people who go to Evolution of a Filipino Family, looking at the film like it's an item off a checklist, or a bragging right. Not to say it can be neither of these things; it can actually be both if you're a cool kid who brags about having watched a Lav Diaz movie. But you shouldn't be going into this movie and acting all surprised when it won't meet you in the middle. It doesn't care if you're bored. It doesn't care if you're confused. It stays the same for those…

Wow...

Just, wow.

I've finally returned to Diaz after a several month break and this only further solidified him as my favorite director.

We follow various branches of a family and their Sisyphean struggle to survive in poverty. There's love, loss, bridges are formed, bridges are burned, they chop wood, they farm, and for as little "action" as there is, a LOT happens. Diaz represents Filipino life perfectly. The characters he paints feel pulled straight from real life. Which makes sense because they kind of are.

"I have a very clear picture of that period and the characters' struggles. I grew up during that period and I know these characters; I have tried to understand that period and will continue…

My 4000 film on Letterboxd!!!

I would first like to thank all of my followers for showing me love, and I'm eternally grateful if you've happened to stumble upon some of my work because of this site. To be a dedicated film fanatic can sometimes be lonely, but thanks to wonderful communities, such as this one, I've been able to meet tons of new friends and likeminded people. Thank you for reminding me of the fact that we're all one.

To celebrate this milestone of mine, I thought it would be fitting to finally watch the first true Lav Diaz film, which also turns out to be his masterpiece.

The context of the now infamous director seems clearer after watching…

Took me four days to finish this, and this is the longest film I've ever watched in my lifetime, and I don't think anything's gonna change that. I was definitely conflicted about this. The negatives are mainly from a technical standpoint, where these elements from the editing, the sound and the cinematography vary in degrees of quality. The film's look is very grainy, at times over-exposed, and other times frustratingly dim. The audio can be fine at one point, but it gets hoarse and ear-splitting in many occasions. There are also instances where the cuts are abrupt, and they can be off-putting. Lav Diaz spent eleven years making this, only filming when funding allow them to. You can tell that…

(I tried to keep this spoiler free but I might have hinted at a few things)

This is one of the best films I've ever seen. It's so perfectly told. And yes, the runtime is necessary. If you can, I recommend watching this masterpiece in one day. First off, this was shot over 10 years so as the story progresses everyone ages. It's especially effective for the younger characters because theres no way this story could have been told otherwise. I feel like the whole first half of this film is just interesting enough to make you care, but is mostly a setup for the second half to destroy your heart multiple times. There were at least 20 moments where…

It's interesting to me that this, Lav Diaz's longest film, was also one of his earliest, suggesting he was already interested in making a mark with something epic in size and scope. I don't necessarily hold with the idea -- which seems to have at least some informal currency amongst those who seek this kind of thing out -- that the longer the film the better it is, because there are still a lot of rough edges here, presumably due to Diaz's relative inexperience as a filmmaker. It's made on what must have been a small budget, and that shows when you compare it to some of his later, lusher works in his more developed 'slow cinema' aesthetic (Lullaby to…

Today, I decided to watch Lav Diaz's Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino in remembrance of the 35th Anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution. Instead of watching alone in my room on my laptop like I usually do, I also decided to watch this in our living room. The experience is quite fascinating as each member of my family stopped by to see what I am watching when a sequence caught their attention, all of us watching at one point when Angie Ferro's Puring was singing a Filipino song. My lola even quipped that that's how they were in the province. Truly, this is a story of the Filipino people, a reflection of our identity.

And as much as it's…