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It is in the nature of cinema, similar to other arts, to tackle the questions which have been discussed and re-evaluated time and time again. While the term “slow cinema” is often used to solely focus on the pace of a feature, it may also be a sign of short-sightedness, for the slowness in the works of Lav Diaz is linked to the issues he discusses, in the stories he tells, from society to politics, always with a strong human focus. His new feature “Genus, Pan” was, as the filmmaker states, inspired by an answer he gave many years ago to the question to how he would define humans and his reply that they are nothing more than animals. Considering the events of the past years, Diaz came back to the statement, thinking how the current times might have proven him right and so the idea for “Genus, Pan” was born,...

With his latest feature Genus Pan, the king of slow cinema Lav Diaz proves that even his fleet-footed efforts can be an unrelenting experience. Clocking in at a smooth 157 minutes, this blistering allegory takes place almost entirely on the ghostly terrain of Hugaw Island. The poverty-stricken Filipino enclave is populated with superstitious citizens who often confront the misery and unfairness of modern life by embracing legends and mythologies of old.

A purposefully bleak exploration of moral rot, Genus Pan‘s stark black-and-white photography amplifies the contrasting shades between shifting natural light and our own self-destructive impulses. It feels stylistically connected to some of Diaz’s recent epics Norte, the End of History and The Woman Who Left specifically, but is far angrier in tone, presenting in potent detail the small acts of jealousy and greed that eventually lead to violence.

Much of the film’s scathing historical subtext gets referenced...

Seemingly stepping away from the bluntly combative political screed and satire of his last few films, “Genus Pan” finds preeminent Filipino auteur Lav Diaz in a more broadly philosophical mood. National leaders may remain caught in his languidly focused crosshairs, but only because he’s zoomed out to target humankind as a whole: From its ape-referencing title downwards, Diaz’s latest announces itself unsubtly as an unhappy allegory for the base, animalistic nature of man.

That highly generalized subject would appear to promise an especially sprawling, expansive work from a director known for his endurance-testing runtimes. Yet “Genus Pan” turns out to be Diaz’s shortest narrative feature since 2011’s “Elegy to the Visitor from the Revolution,” clocking in at a relatively jaunty 157 minutes, and paring the bulk of its narrative down to a minimalist, albeit unhurried, three-hander — expanded directly from “Hugaw,” his contribution to the 2018 portmanteau film “Lakbayan.” Like that short,...

And the names and faces of the tyrants changeBut poverty, pain and murder remainsAnd the voices of truth are locked up in chainsDarkness remains, freedom in flames—The Jerks, RageIn Lino Brocka's big-city melodrama Manila in the Claws of Light (1975), set at the height of Ferdinand Marcos's 1972-1986 military-backed dictatorship, construction worker Julio and his colleagues are subjected to a form of labor abuse nicknamed "taiwan": if at the end of the working day they want to receive their salary, they have to buy it from their employer by waiving 10% of the money they are owed. Moreover, on a nominal daily salary of 4 Php per employee, the foreman takes 1,50 Php for himself as a commission. Finally, if Julio and the other construction workers have no place to live in Manila and wish to sleep in the construction site, they can do so in exchange for yet another deduction from their salary.

It’s the end of the gold mining season and time for the workers to pack up and head home. Andres (Don Melvin Boongaling) and Paulo (Bart Guingona) wait in line to receive their payment while Baldomero (Nanding Josef) daynaps in his hammock. The lifelong friends cut a deal. Baldomero arranged their voyage to the jobsite for a portion of their pay. But come payday, Andres protests: His sister is sick and he needs to buy her medication. After their manager gets his cut and the Captain and Sergeant who overlook their bayan each extort theirs, he won’t have enough money […]...

It’s the end of the gold mining season and time for the workers to pack up and head home. Andres (Don Melvin Boongaling) and Paulo (Bart Guingona) wait in line to receive their payment while Baldomero (Nanding Josef) daynaps in his hammock. The lifelong friends cut a deal. Baldomero arranged their voyage to the jobsite for a portion of their pay. But come payday, Andres protests: His sister is sick and he needs to buy her medication. After their manager gets his cut and the Captain and Sergeant who overlook their bayan each extort theirs, he won’t have enough money […]...

Filipino director Yam Laranas did such a bang-up good job with his 2004 horror movie “Sigaw”, that he repeated the process on 2008’s “The Echo”, an English-language remake of “Sigaw” that went straight to DVD. Laranas is back with a new horror movie called “Patient X”, which has the makings of an effective “last stand in a haunted house” type, which is always something I’m down for. Trailer and poster for the movie via Bloody-Disgusting below. Here’s the not-all-that-coherent plot synopsis for “Patient X”: After twenty years, local police captures the murderer of the older brother of a young boy. Now a doctor, he must go back to his old town and face the murderers himself. He then discovers that the murderers are Aswangs (folkloric Filipino vampire-like creatures) and they pose a deadly threat not only to him but also for the entire town. Starring Richard Gutierrez, Cristine Reyes,...