Viennale Diaries: Day 6
Arthouse heaven with two policemen and a donkey.
When The Waves Are Gone
Lav Diaz, one of the most famous Filipino directors in the world and a true master of slow cinema, is back with another meditative work of art.
Patience is required in bucket loads as you settle into what you hope to be a very comfortable seat for a Lav Diaz movie. This is afterall the man behind A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery, an eight hour odyssey about the Philippines Revolution that’s not even his second longest film. Diaz is a genius shot composer (or designer, as he likes to call himself) but the time he demands from his spectator is borderline ridiculous.
That’s perhaps why his latest, a film that started off as a gangster story and morphed into a scathing political allegory on life under President Rodrigo Duterte, could be the easiest one to recommend to first-time Lav Diaz viewers. It’s just over three hours long, and while the leopard isn’t changing his spots - When The Waves Are Gone is still methodically slow and steady - at least he’s reaching his destination within reason.
Lieutenant Hermes Papauran (John Lloyd Cruz) is known as one of the greatest Filipino detectives maybe ever, but when he starts suffering from sudden and mysterious psoriasis (a nasty skin condition) he is forced to take time off. He says the disease started soon after he saw the first photographs of the innocent people killed by Duterte’s tyrannical “war on drugs.”
The other cop is Primo Macabantay (Ronnie Lazaro), who just got out of serving ten years in prison for corruption after his old protege, Papauran, put him there. In prison Macabantay has found God, and as soon as he gets close to someone he has an urge to baptize them. But his ultimate quest is fueled by revenge, not religion. He wants to find Papauran and make him pay for what he’s done to him.
When The Waves Are Gone is shot in gorgeously grainy 16mm, and designed in Lav Diaz’s signature style: stark black-and-white cinematography, intensely long takes, and a deathly still camera so that every inch of the frame pulsates with importance. It’s an exceptional film, and one conversation between Papuaran and his journalist friend, Raffy Lerma (Don Melvin Boongaling), about the Realm of the Warrior and the battle within, might just be one of the best conversations I’ve heard in any movie. It’s profoundly absorbing.
The story is also gripping and not at all alienating even though it’s just as much about the Philippines and just as political as every Diaz movie before it. In contrast to so many modern American films, the politics here isn’t force-fed - it’s the everyday reality these characters live and if the spectator is truly paying attention, it should crystalize more than a few things into perspective.
EO
The last time I saw a movie about a donkey, I was moved to tears. It’s only natural that the mind immediately references Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar when thinking about Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO. While not as immediately impactful as the 1966 masterpiece, this donkey’s tale is still a refreshing arthouse delight.
The opening sequence in EO is right at the top of any I’ve seen all year. It’s instantly eye-catchy in its abstraction, red strobe lights bathe the features of a woman and a donkey, as they come in and out of flashing view. And the soundtrack is hypotonic, as most of the film’s score proves to be.
The woman we’re watching is Kasandra (Sandra Drzymalska), a circus performer, and the donkey is EO. Through only a few moments, it’s clear that they both care for each other deeply which makes their separation after animal activists successfully intervene, all the more poignant.
Thus begins EO’s journey - from the hands of loving caretakers, through daring escapes and confusion in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night, to football hooligans and road trips with sympathetic truckers and Italian gamblers. We even get an Isabelle Huppert cameo towards the end, playing a Countess and speaking a mix of Italian and French.
Skolimowski films EO’s trip through a constant shift between his perspective, the objective camera and, in one particularly psychedelic moment that references Quixote’s tilting windmills, some kind of maddening in-between state. Some of the visuals and angles are genuinely jaw-dropping. Michal Dymek’s cinematography and, it bears repeating, Pawel Mykietyn’s score play such an essential role in immersing you into the experience. It’s another film, like a few others I’ve seen at this year’s Viennale, that demands to be seen and heard on the big screen.
Designed to move rather than teach, how much you invest in EO depends on how much you love animals. I personally loved watching Skolimowski turn the stereotype of the dumb donkey upside down by telling a story of emotional intelligence, true courage, perseverance and resilience. The broken souls EO meets along the way, both animal and human, are almost as moving but it’s ultimately the image of the sad-eyed EO or the sounds of his brays that linger long after the credits roll.