The incredible attraction of a Lav Diaz movie

After enthusiastically accepting an invitation to watch Lav Diaz’s film Mula Sa Kung Ano Ang Noon (From What Is Before), it dawned on us that we had just committed ourselves to a long afternoon in a darkened hall for five and a half hours. Nevertheless, From What Is Before is an award-winning film, attaining for Philippine cinema its highest honor. According to Briccio Santos, chairman of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), the feat was made possible by bagging the top prize at the 66th Festival of Film in Locarno, Switzerland, the Pardo d’Oro, as well as four other awards.

Mula Sa Kung Ano Ang Noon is a captivating film, with cinematography and storytelling like no one else had done before. Lav’s acclaimed scenes of stillness, where sylvan expanses filled the screen, with grass swaying and wind gusts piercing the theater’s sense surround, left us united with the screen to experience the countryside first hand.

Lav and his unconventional moviemaking is a breath of fresh air. The actors, for instance, are allowed to fully develop their characters. So well did Hazel Orencio the film’s assistant director accomplish this feat that she earned for herself the Boccalino d’Oro Best Actress Award. In a recent article, she admitted that Lav’s following is mostly abroad. She was overwhelmed by tears of happiness to see the theater filled! We, too, were amazed to see the film garner so much attention from Manileños.

Lav’s cinematic genius emphasizes the quietude and peacefulness of a bygone era. The plot is unrushed, the actors unhurried and our mind succumbs to the film as the director gradually peels away the quaint traditions of the rural community. Here we find a people deeply respectful of their surroundings. Healers use plants and trees to cure ailments. Conversation is peppered with dwende, aswang and kapre. We witness the fervor of a tribal harvest dance. Our hearts break with a mother’s powerful grieving in song. Such was the life of our ancestors before the great religions took hold of these islands.

In covering the span of two years, Lav extols the essence of Filipino life before Martial Law. Odd things begin to happen in their community. An outsider penetrates, selling mosquito nets, pots and tide. Cows are discovered butchered in the forest. A stranger is discovered near death at the crossing with lacerations on his neck. The villagers explain this within the context of their old world tradition. A father tells his son to respect the country’s traditional practices. One of them is to ask permission from the dwende before entering his domain. We, ourselves, to this day believe in the practice. How can it hurt? Tabi-tabi po. However, the world is changing, and their world as they knew it begins to fall apart.

Lavrente Indico Diaz is an independent filmmaker, born on Dec. 30, 1958 and raised in Cotabato. He has been known to be director, writer, producer, editor, cinematographer, poet, composer, production designer and actor all wrapped up in one package. He is also known for the length of his films, some running up to 11 hours.

His eight-hour Melancholia, a story about victims of summary executions, won the Orizzonti prize at the Venice Film Festival 2008. His Death in the Land of Encantos likewise competed at the Venice Film Festival documentary category in 2007. The Venice Film Festival calls him “the ideological father of the New Philippine Cinema.”

As a young man, Lav was particularly inspired by Lino Brocka’s Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko Ng Liwanag, describing it as the film that opened his eyes to the power of cinema. We have always been drawn to Lav’s style of movie-making. Someone tagged him as weird for the length of his films. Others called him an attention-seeker for shooting in black and white. He doesn’t care, or at least he doesn’t seem to care. He has better things to do and he is right. All we know is that he has always made us cry for opening a world that we have ignored, one that shows the Filipino like he was ages ago, pure of heart and unaffected by the developing world around him.

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