Popular reviews

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  Review by Sudhakar Kumar ★★★★★ 2

  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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  Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★ 5

  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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  Review by Marcissus ★★★★ 1

  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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  Review by Avirup ★★★★

  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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  Review by CinemaShadow ★★★★★

  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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  Review by Lee W 💫HEAVEN SURROUNDS US LIKE A HOOD 💫

  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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  Review by Mephisdopeles ★★★★★

  Lav Diaz is not of this day and age. The closest thing I can compare this film to is the tradition of allegorical landscape painting from the early modern period, think Breughel or Altdorfer, where richly layered landscapes contain tiny figures, wandering merchants, monks and bandits, sinners subject to the wrath of God. The film's daring composition paints the middle ground of the painting for two hours or more: the wild, untamed, even angry jungle and our hero struggling against its forces. Then it patiently carves out the monolithic ruin in the jungle where the film's pivotal plot element, the fall from grace, takes place. Like a hilltop in the background then a city appears, followed by a general topography…

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  Review by GrimsChild ½

  #70HoursOfDiaz

  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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  Review by V. Lepistö ★★★★½ 6

  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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  Review by Jamie ★★★★½

  There's a ten minute scene about a quarter of the way through 'Heremias' which encapsulates one of its most consistent strengths. It consists of Heremias washing his Zebu cow in a river by hand, tossing water up and rubbing it into the animal's body.

  What gave the scene such weight was not just the act itself, but the time it took to play out and the time spent with the animal beforehand. For two hours covering four days and nights of travel the film followed Heremias with his cow in tow painstakingly pulling an overflowing cart of goods. After all that, washing it by hand came across as a sincere act of appreciation and devotion, which in turn set up…

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  Review by kinomancer

  Even more so than Diaz's other work, this is a movie that gives you exactly as much as you're willing to put into it. Lacking the thematic complexity and slippery characterisations of Melancholia (2008) it's definitely a more straightforward experience overall, but in a way that can actually make it feel more impenetrable depending on how you approach it.

  Because you don't have to pay as much attention to the story, you can easily put this on in the background while doing something else just to soak in the scenery and vibes (lots of gorgeous long shots in here), or you can turn the lights off and put the phone away and let yourself be fully immersed in the long…

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  Review by inactive account ★★★★

  Slow cinema is equivalent to a director opening an art exhibit of a single theme and every scene is a painting you're either forced to watch for a short or long time. While it is undoubtedly painfully boring, cinematic aspects such as cinematography, character, story, message, and comparison with other artworks allow the experience to be enjoyable.

  Let's start with cinematography: I chose this out of other Lav Diaz films because it was the oldest on MUBI I haven't seen. Turns out, this was right after EoaFF, and that explains the lower digital A/V quality -- a contrast to what I had a glimpse of with his later work The Halt. Therefore, the film became an exhibit of pencil drawings…