An embittered law student commits a brutal double murder; a family man takes the fall and is forced into a harsh prison sentence; a mother and her two children wander the countryside looking for some kind of redemption.
Filipino maven Diaz delivers a bravura, literary human drama that does justice to its great source material.
Patient and inquisitive viewers will surely find it a very rewarding experience, and one hopes it’s not the last Lav Diaz film to make its way to these shores.
Detailed, rich, complex filmmaking.
Shot in blazing colour, this builds into an intense and emotional saga of evil, guilt and injustice.
What incredible ambition: it is visionary film-making.
A long but rewarding story of lives connected by the act of murder from 'slow cinema' director Lav Diaz.
It has a cumulative power that makes it well worth persevering with.
Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Monday August 11, 2014, until Thursday August 14, 2014. More info: www.filmhousecinema.com