An intimate epic made with uncompromising and austere seriousness that patiently and methodically observes the collapse and hopeful revival of a poor farming clan, meant to symbolize a nation’s history spanning 1971 to 1987.
With the imminent death of his autocratic grandfather, coinciding with the burgeoning oppressive regime of Ferdinand Marcos, Servando Monzon III, inheritor of the hacienda and businesses of his powerful clan, agonizes on becoming the new feudal lord and capitulating with Marcos’ designs to control the Philippines. He is aware of his clan’s long history of violence; he knows the very violent history of his county; and he foresees a very violent future with the Marcos dictatorship.
The Philippines, 1972. Mysterious things are happening in a remote barrio. Wails are heard from the forest, cows are hacked to death, a man is found bleeding to death at the crossroad and houses are burned. Ferdinand E. Marcos announces Proclamation No. 1081 putting the entire country under Martial Law.
Andres Bonifacio y de Castro is considered to be one of the most influential proponents in the struggle against Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines during the late nineteenth century. Bonifacio’s widow is searching for her husband’s missing dead body; as she and her followers stumble deeper into the jungle, they become entangled in the dense thicket of their own guilt and responsibility. The Spanish governor tries to play off the various rebel factions and their utopian visions against each other. At the same time, a badly wounded companion of Bonifacio reflects upon the victims a revolution inevitably creates. Mythology, facts and a vibrant sense of history merge.
To this day, Ishmael Bernal's movie Himala is still in our town, in our world. This will be reflected in the broader perspective of the majority, of the surrounding events. Beliefs still lie in the truth. Consciousness is still dominant at the level of illusion. The naive, savage, cruel, and selfish politics still prevail.
For Horacia Somorostro, living has become a veritable reclusion perpetua, an imprisonment. Life’s spins and randomness has been very difficult, vicious and inexplicable for her. The year is 1997. Princess Diana dies in a violent car crash. The world is saddened by the death of Mother Theresa. And the Philippines is gripped with fear. It has become the kidnap capital of Asia.
An artist struggles to finish his work. A storyline about a cult plays in his head. Fundamentalism will destroy the world. The artist destroys his muse in the process. He redeems her in the end.
A story about victims of summary executions. Three people start a strange therapy to escape their agonies.
It is the year 2034 AD and Southeast Asia has been in the dark for the last three years, literally, because the sun hasn’t shone as a result of massive volcanic eruptions at the Celebes Sea in 2031. Madmen control countries, communities, enclaves and bubble cities. Cataclysmic epidemics razed over the continent. Millions have died and millions have left.
The Philippines is visited by an average of 20~28 strong typhoons and storms every year. It is the most storm-battered country in the world. Last year, Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), considered the strongest storm in history, struck the Philipines, leaving in its path apocalyptic devastation.
Hilarion Zabala has a mysterious, recurring olfactory problem. A counselor/psychiatrist suspects a lingering case of phantosmia, a phantom smell, and possibly caused by a deep psychological fracture. One recommended radical cure is that Hilarion must go back and deal with the darkest currents of his past life in the military service. Reassigned in the very remote Pulo Penal Colony, he must also confront the horrific realities of his present situation.
In the late 70s, a gang of militias, under the control of the military, terrorizes a remote village in the Philippines. The terror being inflicted on the populace is not just corporal but intensely psychological as well. They were constantly fed with apocryphal tales about the village leader. A few souls are not giving up. They are fighting. The poet/teacher/activist, Hugo Haniway, decides to find out the truth about the disappearance of his wife. A love story set in the darkest period of Philippine history, the Marcos Dictatorship. The narrative and the characters are a composite of real events and real people that happened and existed during the period. A Filipino rock opera.
Erwin Romulo, the late Alexis Tioseco’s best friend, recalls the events after the critic and his girlfriend Nika Bohinc’s untimely death in their home in Quezon City. Diaz makes use of one long take to allow Romulo an uninterrupted narration of the events. The pain of recalling is palpable.
A Filipino poet hearkens back to his village after spending years in Europe. Horrified to discover that the community has been buried under landslides, he begins wandering through the countryside, reconnecting with friends, lovers and family members whose lives teeter on the brink of destruction.
Lieutenant Hermes Papauran, one of the best investigators of the Philippines, is at a deep moral crossroad. As a member of the police forces, he is a first-hand witness of the murderous anti-drug campaign that his institution is implementing with dedication. The atrocities are corroding Hermes physically and spiritually, causing him a severe skin disease resulting from anxiety and guilt. As he tries to heal, a dark past haunts him and has eventually come back for a reckoning.
Florentina Hubaldo keeps repeating her story, orally, akin to a mantra, a meditation and a prayer; her way of remembering; her means of maintaining hope for survival and redemption; fighting with what’s left of her memory. She lives and exist in a place and a condition where history, her story, is being systematically being obliterated. Two gold hunters endlessly dig the ground with their shovels and hoes for the proverbial treasure that will emancipate them. A father sadly waits for the death of her fragile daughter.
Three illegal miners journey back to their island after months of toiling in hellish conditions. With their hard-earned money, they traversed the sea, the mountains and the forest until they reached their destination. Or did they really reach their cursed place?
Andrés Bonifacio, the freedom fighter known as the father of the Philippine revolution, was executed by rival revolutionaries in 1897. His wife, Gregoria de Jesus, searched for his body in the mountains for 30 days. It was never found.
Tomas, the old venerable mayor of the remote town of Kawalan, learns that the invading Japanese will set up a garrison there. He organizes willing members in his community to set up a hidden settlement in the middle of the forest, where they can live unaffected by the horrors of war. As a young revolutionary during the 1896 fight against Spain and then as a soldier fighting against the Americans, Tomas had witnessed the effects of violence on people and become a pacifist. Now, he must see if inhabitants of the hidden settlement can escape the sufferings wrought by the war.
The film begins in Frankfurt, where Lailani, now 65, awaits a plane to Manila. She is returning home to the Philippines for the first time in 30 years. En route home, she delays her return by stopping over in Singapore. Her interactions with her fellow Filipinos help her reflect on the nature of her loss, the cycle of sacrifice and longing that marks them all. Gripped by the fear of returning home to a life she has left behind but is still intricately connected to, she finds moments of enchantment among other lost souls. They have created their ways of living with disenchantment through a Dreamtime that shelters them from the storms of trauma.
