Synopsis
A humble epic of the indios.
An intimate epic made with uncompromising and austere seriousness that patiently and methodically observes the collapse and hopeful revival of a poor farming clan.
Evolution of a Filipino Family
2004 ‘Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino’ Directed by Lav Diaz
Cast
Pen Medina Ronnie Lazaro Angel Aquino Joel Torre Gino Dormiendo Elryan de Vera Angie Ferro Marife Necesito Lui Manansala Banaue Miclat Sigrid Andrea Bernardo Ray Ventura Dido De La Paz Roeder Camanag Lorelie Futol Erwin Gonzales Mario Magallona Quark Henares Joe Gruta Fonz Deza Divina Cavestany Noel Miralles Noel Sto. Domingo Kenneth Tiamzon Raye Baquirin Mark Dionisio Glen Parian Epifanio Enriquez Patty Eustaquio Show All…
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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…
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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…
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Kinda impressive that it took Lav Diaz over ten years to work on a 10+ hour-long film about a farm family struggling to survive in a turbulent Marcos Era Phillippines that lasted a decade, but did you know it took 12 years to make Boyhood?
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Epic in every imaginable way, Lav Diaz's Evolution of a Filipino Family examines the fifteen years of martial law in the Philippines imposed by former President Ferdinand Marcos. At the center of the movie is the Gallardo family, who eke out a marginal existence farming a dour strip of land. In their barrio, the imposition of martial law coincides with a wave of guerrilla activity and a rise in crime and general lawlessness. As their fortunes decline, the family begins to fall apart. Shot in black and white and relying almost exclusively on natural sound, Evolution was made over an eight-year period and like other Diaz films talks about the larger historical and political situation through the tribulations of an individual or a family. As astonishing achievement.
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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…
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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…
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To call Lav Diaz’ 10 hour 25 minute film ambitious is an understatement.
Cinema is the greatest mirror of humanity’s struggle. You see this alternative world, but you’re part of it. Everybody is part of it. This is our world.
---- Lav DiazThe film shows the birth of Lav Diaz’s now famous style: very long takes in a very long film to tell a very social story that is very moving.
Diaz covered the period of 1971 to 1987 in his film. It was a decisive period in the Philippines. It was the time of Marcos’ dictatorship, and the time of the People’s Revolution in 1986. Its length might seem intimidating at first but its intimate and powerful look…
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Lav Diaz's Evolution of a Filipino Family is a 10-hour poetic and meditative portrayal of a poor family that merges fiction, documentary, and surreality together and thoroughly and profoundly explores its themes of politics, class inequality, and as well as an inseparable relationship between past and present. The film is deeply emotionally and psychologically exhausting as the endless pain is relentlessly presented to us, and the long shots strongly express the exhaustion of farming all day under the hot and shining sun in order to earn enough money just to stay alive daily, and also, of climbing mountains, excavating and finding gold all day just to make a living.
Lav Diaz was raised on the southern island of Mindanao and…
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lav diaz's ebolusyon ng isang pamilyang pilipino is a statement of what is the story of a filipino family in the hands of the dictator regime to unsuccessful neoliberalism of cory aquino.
spanning from 10hrs and 25mins every details of the past is being presented in our eyes, footages of the rallies cutted to reflect the life of a filipino family.
the silence and static of every scene is one of the trademarks of lav diaz's film, he really knows how to use spaces and the sound on every aspect.
ito'y kwento ng bayan ko,
kwento ng bawa't pilipino.
hindi ito alamat, ito'y totoo
at karanasan ng mga api.#NotMyPresident
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"We’re labeled ‘the slow cinema’ but it’s not slow cinema, it’s cinema. I don’t know why…every time we discourse on cinema we always focus on the length. It’s cinema, it’s just like poetry, just like music, just like painting where it’s free, whether it’s a small canvas or it’s a big canvas, it’s the same. Cinema shouldn’t be imposed on."
- Lav DiazIt took me a while to finish the Filipino maestro's longest film, the 640 minutes long mammoth masterwork Evolution of a Filipino Family, and now I'm left completely paralyzed. No one captures the flow of time as masterfully, touchingly and painfully as Lav Diaz & Béla Tarr. It's not "slow" cinema; it's life.
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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…