An average movie

I really had no idea what to expect from this flick but since it won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, I was quite eager to check it out. I have to admit that I was slightly worried by the 4 hours running time. Well, I wish it was worth it but, eventually, even if the story was not bad at all, it was probably the slowest thriller I have ever seen. Seriously, to be honest, maybe I missed something but I didn’t see anything in this movie which required such a long running time. I mean, at some point, instead of looking for her lost son as she said she would do, the main character decided to go after the man responsible of her wrongful imprisonment. Fine, but then, she did spend at least two hours of running time stalking the guy day and night which was just too much. In the process, she became acquainted with some marginal figures (a hunchback selling some balut eggs, a transvestite and a mentally disturbed homeless woman) and, through most of the running time, she had some seemingly pointless conversations with these characters over and over again. Obviously, I didn’t really grasp this movie but, at least, it was visually quite beautiful though. Indeed, with this gorgeous black-and-white photography, it reminded me of ‘Roma’ which was actually released afterwards. Furthermore, all the scenes were done with some very long static shots and it was obvious that the director Lav Diaz made sure each scene looked like some realistic and yet still suggestive canvas. Finally, there is no doubt that Charo Santos-Concio delivered here a very strong performance. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t really work for me, it was still an interesting watch and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.