Full Description
This collective work brings together contributions from academic researchers and film critics who offer analyses of the singular aesthetics of Filipino filmmaker, Lav Diaz's cinema.
The cinematographic work of Lav Diaz is steeped in the hopes and suffering of a people exposed to both state violence and the climatic cataclysms that regularly devastate the archipelago. A diary of the filming of Essential Truths of the Lake (2023), as well as previously unpublished interviews and masterclasses, take us to the heart of Lav Diaz's singular creative process, rooted in time and organically confronting places and their inhabitants. His characteristically lengthy films tie in with the destinies of opponents, of the marginalised and the disenfranchised. Confronting history and the tragic consequences of successive colonisations, encouraging resistance, reviving progressively forgotten animist practices, restoring the dignity of those who disappeared: Lav Diaz's cinematic frescoes stand up against silence, amnesia and repression.
This volume is perfect for students and scholars alike interested in Asian cinema, film critique and the work of Lav Diaz.
Contents
List of contributors ix
List of illustrations xi
1 Introduction 1
CORINNE MAURY AND OLIVIER ZUCHUAT
PART ONE
Violent stories, resurgent history 9
2 Lav Diaz, the possibility of a people? 11
GABRIEL BORTZMEYER
3 Allegoric forms of history in three films by Lav Diaz 23
SYLVIE ROLLET
4 About Servando Magdamag, Lino Brocka and melodrama.
A dialogue with Mac Alejandre and Ricardo Lee 35
5 The need for melodrama 40
CYRIL BÉGHIN
PART TWO
Devastated lands, ritualised lands 55
6 "There is no there there" 57
FABIENNE COSTA
7 The agony and the ecstasy: fragments of discussions between Lav Diaz and Alexander Tioseco on Death in the Land of Encantos 65
8 Existing in the aftermath: a lullaby to the sorrowful mystery and from what is before 74
MAY ADADOL INGAWANIJ
9 On From What Is Before. A dialogue with Lav Diaz and Hazel Orencio 88
10 A creature may hide another 92
PIERRE JAILLOUX
PART THREE
Wounds 105
11 Cruelty, perpetual undertow 107
CORINNE MAURY
12 Shooting Season of the Devil. A dialogue with Lav Diaz and Hazel Orencio 118
13 Caring about the world 123
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE FERRARI
PART FOUR
Acts of creation 129
14 Facing the volcano. A production diary 131
OLIVIER ZUCHUAT
15 About Bazin. A conversation between Lav Diaz and Hervé Joubert-Laurencin 144
16 Unfolding, happening, arising. About Lav Diaz's situation-shots 153
OLIVIER ZUCHUAT
Bibliography 165
Acknowledgements 169
Index 170
