News:
Venice festival awaits Lav Diaz and his latest epic
By Ruben V. Nepales
Philippine Daily Inquirer
VENICE, Italy—Seeing that the screening of Lav Diaz’s “Kagadanan sa Nanwaan Ning mga Engkanto (Death in the Land of Encantos)” will be followed by an event honoring director Bernardo Bertolucci with a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival made my Pinoy heart swell with pride.
As we write this, the red carpet at the Palazzo del Cinema is being prepared in time for the opening of the world’s oldest film festival. Like some actresses, this festival hides its true age well. The festival’s 65th edition is actually its 75th anniversary, but World War II—and student protests in 1968—forced some skips.
Lav is not yet here because, as he explained in his e-mail, “We’re still rushing the film’s dub-outs, and there are problems with the computer. ‘Di pa kami nakakatulog, and it’s crunch time!”
Official screening
We hope the engkantos will help Lav finish his nine-hour film in time for its official screening. A mixture of documentary and fiction, “Encantos” tells the story of a fictional Filipino poet, Benjamin Agusan, who returns to his hometown in Padang, Bicol in the aftermath of the destruction and tragedy wrought by super typhoon, Reming.
Below are excerpts of our interview with Lav, who managed to answer our questions before he boarded the plane to Venice:
“Death in the Land of Encantos” has the closing night honors in the Orizzonti (documentary) section of the Venice Film Festival. And you’re in the running for the Artistic Innovation Award for this film at the Toronto International Film Festival. Are you still jazzed up about attending film festivals? What are the best parts and the down side about them?
I love cinema. Festivals are always the best places to discover new works and rediscover old ones. The best part is watching films and interacting with fellow artists from other cultures. There’s also the opportunity to meet the masters.
I anticipated to see Ingmar Bergman appear in foggy Goteborg. The down side? Going to festivals can be tiring—and you spend so much. You feel sad about those endless partings, and the visa applications are the most insane!
Since “Encantos” is classified as a documentary, news stories presumed that its protagonist, Benjamin Agusan—a poet and a scholar who goes home after a study grant in Russia—is based on a real-life character. Was Benjamin Agusan inspired by your father who, I understand, is “a lover of Russian literature and all things Russian”? Is there a bit of Lav Diaz in Benjamin?
“Encantos” mixes documentary and fiction. I created Benjamin with no particular Filipino artist or persona in mind. My subconscious merely flowed with all the threads that ended up with the lead character in the nine-hour film.
Familiar terrain
But, Benjamin’s journey is familiar terrain for the aesthetic traveler—the search for beauty, real love, redemption, and for answers that could push humanity to greater heights.
The Russian bit is a send-up to my late father, although he never went to Russia. Yes, I know how it feels to be alone in distant lands—I know about solitude and sorrow, so I know Benjamin Agusan.
Hundreds of residents of Padang went missing as a result of super typhoon, Reming. How many are still missing?
There’s no exact number to this day. Some say more than three hundred families were buried alive. The smell of death is still in my head.
Don’t you sometimes wish that you could just be like other directors who crank out films that are two hours or less in length?
Yes, I wish I can again create feature films shorter than what I’m doing now, and it’s easy to fulfill that if only I have the strength to manipulate or betray my mise en scene and just be part of the circus.
But, I’m committed to my own cinema. So, I must fulfill my aesthetic stand—I can’t compromise it! Length is not really the issue—commitment is. By the way, I just did two short films—one is seven minutes long, and the other, five minutes.
Where does this passion to make films that are epic in scope and length spring from?
I don’t really know. There are stories in my head. They take on different incarnations in my poems, songs, short stories and essays. I put them in paintings, novels and cinema. Cinema appropriates those stories well. I love making films. It mirrors my ideology and how I understand the world.
Most amusing
What are the most amusing things that people do to sit through your films?
At Hope University in Kuala Lumpur, a “survivor” put up a virtual kitchen in front of him while watching the 11-hour “Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino.” He prepared well for the battle!
At the House of World Culture in Berlin, they mounted “Ebolusyon” from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. in a hall where they set up sofa beds, sleeping bags, big pillows and reclining chairs. Coffee was served all night, and masseurs were on standby to provide help. It was cool—even the two-hour discourse after the screening was great!
During Cinemanila’s world premiere of “Batang West Side” in Makati, it was full-house. People were standing for five hours. Fresh from the laboratory, Mike de Leon watched it alone at the now-defunct LVN studios.
Incident
You lost five months of post-production work on “Ebolusyon” when your computer crashed. Do you have nightmares about this incident? How do you ensure that this does not happen again?
That was such a nightmare! I almost turned my back on “Ebolusyon.” The sound engineer went insane; the assistant director broke down. After that debacle, I can never trust those robots and computers again—those post-post modern of modern man’s tools. Even the most sophisticated Macs and PCs are erratic and unpredictable. So, I’m extra careful when dealing with them now.
Your stories about pitching “Ebolusyon” in homes and offices in the US to raise funds and keep the project afloat are worthy of a documentary. To this day, what stands out in your memory from that experience?
The deep loneliness of being in such a struggle. Ang hirap! It’s hard to describe it—the uncertainty, isolation, desolation, insanity, the madness of it all when you’re pursuing a dream. The way I did it was quite fierce and scary. I’m not romanticizing that struggle—it was desperate and painful, but I did it!
Very rich
I remember sitting in the Greyhound bus station in Philadelphia one winter night as I waited for this Filipino guy to pick me up. I didn’t know him, he didn’t know me. He was a fraternity brother from the Philippines who became very rich selling computers. Somebody hooked us up. And I wanted to show him the footage and ask him if he’d want to finance the film.
I stayed in one of his apartments for a few days. Finally, he invited me to his big house and I started showing the footage. He and his wife watched my black and whites. They were appreciative and patronizing. And they fed me and gave me money that would feed me for a few weeks.
I remember hanging out on a Baltimore street for one whole day in the dead of winter just to wait for another rich Filipino. I kept calling him—but he never showed up!
Then, in the café where I sat for hours, this woman came to me and offered me an obscure Rolling Rock beer and started talking about Edgar Allan Poe and “The Raven,” his alcoholism, and his Annabel Lee melancholia. It was surreal—I wanted to laugh and cry! (To be continued tomorrow)
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