Synopsis
A wandering peddler separates from his fellow salesman and becomes involved with criminals in the jungle.
Heremias: Book One - The Legend of the Lizard Princess
2006 ‘Heremias: Unang Aklat - Ang Alamat ng Prinsesang Bayawak’ Directed by Lav Diaz
Cast
Sid Lucero Ronnie Lazaro Perry Dizon Simon Ibarra Mayen Estanero Aero Joy Damaso Winston Maique Yul Servo Bart Guingona Lou Veloso Noel Millares Fonz Deza Joonee Gamboa Lui Manansala Nina Medina Ermie Concepcion Nor Domingo Earl Drilon Yutaka Yamakawa Elryan de Vera Carlo Tan Adong Ramos Santy Tagulao Noli Madredana Danny Bitangcor Eddie Vizmonte
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Popular reviews
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One of Diaz’ simplest and it is exactly in this bare simplicity that the movie is a tough watch.
Lav Diaz's nine-hour masterpiece Heremias is only the first part of two films. If anything, it's one lengthy prelude to the main narrative.In Heremias there is so far no past and no future, no memories and no documents, no references and no layers of time nor changes of materials, but perhaps there`s a miracle.
In Heremias there`s only the presence and the path of a single individual shown with slow moments in time- plan-opak-monochrome sound moving pictures. Diaz makes you suffer with him; the same way he allowed you to feel how it is to die painfully in Evolution of a filipino famioy.
Other Diaz films cut between a multitude of characters so the limitation of following one character here constricts and traps a viewer even more.
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On the day I write this, Wikipedia describes Heremias in the following way:
"the story of a farmer who makes a pact with God to save a girl from rape"
I wouldn't call that inaccurate, because the most important narrative strand in the film is the rape plot. It is the point of the film. It is the thing which tests Heremias. However what Wikipedia does not mention is that this pact is made 8 hours and 20 minutes into Heremias. Furthermore, the main plot doesn't even start until 7 hours and 20 minutes into the film. Heremias has a 7 hour prologue which sets up all the context for its actual story. The first 2 hours and 30 minutes…
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In 2002 the director joked that his next feature—Heremias—was going to be forty hours long, the audience, with their eyes wide and bloodshot, didn't for a minute think that Lav 'i do whatever the fuck i want' Diaz was joking. Fortunately for the weak bladdered the runtime dwindled into the considerably less ten hours, for better or worse.
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There is a one hour long shot filmed handheld from a bush in this film. Lav Diaz really does whatever he wants to. I wonder if book 2 will ever be released or if he has given up on it.
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85/100
After 6 hours of his usual long takes with minimal action and long periods of no dialogue, Diaz said fuck it and did a 62 minutes long shot of some guys doing drugs, being horny, loud and obnoxious. This is imo one of the boldest things he's done and it's like he's testing his own fans.
This is narratively Diaz's most straightforward work and also least politically charged but it is as intriguing as any of his films. Like his other films this is also atmospherically incredibly immersive, particularly the first three hours , it totally teleports you into the rural Philippines and makes you part of Heremias' journey. Rain sequences were just gorgeous.
The film though truly reveals…
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Time is an important element of cinema and the way Lav Diaz uses it to shape and structure his movies is quite something to behold. A religious allegory of sorts, Heremias deals with the trails and tribulations faced by its eponymous protag. Life is made impossible for him when his ox cart, with his whole livelihood, is stolen and he falls victim to corrupt rural police. Diaz clearly imparts the political and the historical through the tragedy of this one individual. The rural locations, captured in beautiful black & white images give the film and its story a timeless aspect.
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about halfway through. what im noticing so far is how little Diaz expects from the viewer; truly, this is cinema you could do your taxes to, or, if you’re me, play Yu-Gi-Oh to
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The way Diaz builds the worlds of his films is something to wonder and admire; he frames these characters in black and white against rugged backdrops of the Philippines, its jungles and roads that spread all around, under the sky that is full of tension. We hear that there's a typhoon coming, a storm that is speculated as band of travelling salesmen travel the days in their wagons and spend the nights by the roads, around the campfire, drinking, laughing and singing. We never get close to these people but we come to understand where they come from and where they are going. One of them, Heremias, takes a different path and ends up in ruins. Obsessed by the unfathomable…
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85/100
Heremias may be one of Diaz's more straightforward narratives and also one of his less (directly) political ones, yet it is nonetheless as much of an 'ordeal' as the greater part of his oeuvre, clocking a solid 9-hours runtime featuring multiple extended static shots, one of which runs for a formidable 62 minutes. And yet despite everything―as always―the ends seem to justify the means, no matter how punishing or gimmicky they may appear initially, with Diaz ensuring that his protagonist's prolonged torment (both physical and spiritual) and world-weariness soaks down to our very bones, in a way that might have been impossible through any film of conventional length.
The titular character Heremias, an impoverished wandering peddler selling wares from…
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Hours 24-34
I take back every criticism I had with Evolution Of A Filipino Family. In retrospect it's runtime seems rather humble in it's modest reflection of its participants. It's runtime may have tested my patience on occasion but at least that movie had an overall goal: to represent an average family in the Philippines over a span of time. Did it meander? Sure but fur all intents and purposes in retrospect I think it (mostly) succeeded at it's simplistic aims.
I bring this up because Diaz's follow up, this film is maybe the single worst film I have ever seen in my life.
I am willing to accept a lot from a "long" film but I think your…
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[EDIT 09/01/2020: please read the comments section of this review]
the melancholy actions of some Filipino people compressed into one action, that one action ultimately extended and toyed with over the course of ten hours: the perpetual depressed trudge toward an empty promise, a meaningless stretch of road taken over by bicycles and cars and modernity but they keep walking, sticking to their principles, even though the world around them changes.... they couldn't keep up....
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or, Heremias’ Odyssey: How I Stopped Worrying And Embraced Death