Synopsis
In the year 2050, the Philippines braces for the coming of the fiercest storm ever to hit the country. And as the wind and waters start to rage, poets wander the streets.
The Day Before the End
Studio
Country
Original Language
Spoken Languages
Alternative Title
末日前的一天
Genre
Releases by Date
Theatrical limited
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Germany
Releases by Country
Germany
08 May 2016
- Theatrical limited
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Would've applied this rating to The Day Before the End for the images alone -- the aural, Shakespearian elements were really just a flowery bonus, the icing on the elegantly expressive cake. This was my first Diaz; I've always been quite intimidated by the majority of his films due to their runtimes. Most days I prefer to watch two dozen short films than one, four-to-seven hour long film, but from this experience alone, I feel comfortable declaring Diaz an sonic-visual poet, possibly even a master. His films' runtimes are no longer daunting to me, as I could see myself sitting comfortably with his images and acoustics for hours on end. How gorgeous.
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The most excruciating, impenetrable 16 minutes Diaz ever shot. Our poets may announce the end of the world, but if they all perish, this is what happens. Haunting last shot.
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First of all,This doesn't really felt like in 2050,it felt like a random day at streets with good atm in Phillipines set in present dayz .Wondering how easily I got bored in this fvcking 16 mins while conquered more than 10½ Hour of Lav Diaz profoundly.The b&w Cinematography was cool btw as expected from Lav Diaz.But Idk if it failed me or I failed it cz it doesn't make sense.Wanted the rainy scene more in the end(It seemed better than the entire thing tho) but thank God it ended.Don't know what to do about the rating,I admire Diaz so much & it seems a disrespect to him but can't help.Diaz's blind sons may rate this as a art or masterpiece or whatever;shit this made me feel dull.
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Hours 70.5
I can safely say I never saw this coming.
It's one thing for Diaz to announce an exclusive short with MUBI even as Storm Children: Book One and Lullaby To A Sorrowful Mystery have no set release dates yet and it's another thing to have this short come out within 24 hours of its announcement leaving me totally unguarded for it's release this morning. However it is a completely different matter entirely when this 18 minute short is a work of such formal mastery, from a guy who has finally, FINALLY delivered on over 70 hours of long takes, landscape shots, two way dialogue, camera-as-metaphor midshots etc and created his own mini masterpiece (even more surprising given…
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[5]
Just in case anyone was wondering why Lav Diaz films are so damn long, take a look at this short film. It is built around an intriguing enough conceit -- that a typhoon is on the way to the island and, rather than evacuate or batten down the hatches, the community succumbs to a collective madness. What this spreading disturbance is, however, is not quite clear.
All we know is that virtually everyone in the film goes around frantically declaiming Shakespeare. (Do they think that the Bard, as a kind of high water mark of "culture," will stave off mass death and destruction?) What becomes apparent is that Diaz is a filmmaker whose ideas require the time he gives them to develop. Without that expansion, those ideas risk looking unclear and incomplete.
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Waiting for something that may never come, humanity in progress - who knows where the line between performer and person blurs (not me, not Diaz)... a ritual perhaps, paying homage to the terror of living in a constantly evolving world. A merge of the contemporary disaster film, ancient language and the classical arthouse feature - the hum of people doing things constantly overpowers the speech of those trying so desperately to find meaning hanging from their own words - or at least, the words they speak as written by others.
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Are these the poets, the prophets or the mad? A film that is pure apocalypse happening inside our heads. I think I could see this over and over again just to calm myself even if it feels terrifying.
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75/100
In a dystopian Philippines the people are about to be hit by the worst typhoon in their nation's history, a cataclysmic event signalling the end of times, as poets roam the deserted streets reciting verses from Shakespeare. Their appearance likens them to prophets of doom, chanting the last rites of passage before millenia of human progress is swept away by nature's wrath, or simply attempting to summon the inherent power of art to help the people on the streets come to terms with their inevitable fate.
In this pre-apocalyptic night without an end, a shadowy mysterious figure stalks each of the poets along their paths, observing silently before becoming one with the pouring rain. Is he death, come to…
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The inanity of artifice in the face of natural destruction + art at its limits and its most cathartic.
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Watched it twice. Same discontent on the meaning and urgency of the future. Diaz and the unknown. A direct address to the recent Philippine elections. Stay pressed. A