Norte, la fin de l'Histoire

Finally! Today, I can now say that I have seen a Lav Diaz film. Since his multi-awarded "Batang West Side" in 2001, Mr. Diaz has built a name directing artistic opuses that run much much longer than usual feature films, usually more than five hours. His longest was "Evolution of a Filipino Family" in 2004, which clocked at a whopping 11 and a half hours! Running for about 4 hours, "Norte" is fondly referred to as Mr. Diaz's "short" film, and therefore the most accessible of all his films.

"Norte" is set in the northern province of Ilocos Norte. Fabian Viduya (Sid Lucero) was a topnotch law student who quit law school because of his highfalutin philosophical ideas of a society beyond existentialism and anarchy. Joaquin (Archie Alemania) and Eliza (Agnes Bayani) were a poor couple whose dreams of building their own eatery business are dashed when Joaquin suffers a leg injury and they fell deep into debt.

The fates of these three people intersected when a heinous crime was committed in their small town. Since then, these three lives were thrown into a major maelstrom. These events happened in just in the first hour, the rest of the next three hours follows what happens to each of these three characters following that cruelly fateful day.

I will not pretend and say that I did not feel the four hours. I did feel the length of the film with those static shots that seemed to be showing nothing in particular or the very slow telling of events with several details that seemed like they would have been edited out in usual film. However, each of these scenes would usually precede a scene of big importance, building up the suspense very effectively.

If we complain that there is no character development in mainstream film, in this film, there is not shortage of that. We will get to see how the events shaped Fabian, Joaquin and Eliza as they were caught in their consequences. However, for a super-complex character like Fabian, the four hours was not even enough to get to know his innermost core that drove him to do the things he did. Fabian is a big question mark up to his very last scene.

Sid Lucero got wrung through the wringer for his role as Fabian. You'll admire him. You'll pity him. You'll hate him. This is such a complex role and Lucero was more than up to the task. "Norte" is his film. It was his actions that throw the other characters' lives around.

Angeli Bayani has taken over roles that would probably been given to younger Ms. Nora Aunor. Even if her character barely talked, it was her eyes, her face that talked to us. Her scenes with Archie Alemania are tearjerkers without words nor music to build up the moment. Her back was even turned to us. Yet the emotion was so deeply felt. There was also that scene where she was walking with her kids at the crossroads, and following that, a scene with her kids over a ledge -- she can really convey tension that her director requires.

Archie Alemania's character development was rather straight-forward and he played the character very sympathetically. Mae Paner was the usurer Magda, such a hateful character you will feel her effect even if she was only seen in the first hour. Soliman Cruz was another hateful character Wakwak seen in the third hour. That scene where he was singing "O Holy Night" was so insidiously sinister.

This film is not for everyone. Not everyone will have the patience for it. Not everyone will have the time for it. However, for those who do invest their time with this, you will see that this was a film of artistic excellence. The innovative camera angles make mundane household items and rustic scenes look and feel different. This could be your best chance to watch a Lav Diaz film and immerse yourself in the work of a director whose name is already lined up with National Artists for film Brocka and Bernal.

Norte: Hangganan ng Kasaysayan (Norte, the End of History) clocking in at 250 minutes is utterly breathtaking in scope and visually remains a staggeringly beautiful, poetic masterpiece. On a symbolic level, it is a transcendent story of exploration, self-discovery and redemption, realistically portraying the strength, and equal fragility, of the human condition. The film elaborately investigates the relationship between man and his socio-political circumstances - in this case the extreme poverty of the Philippines in correlation with brutal capitalism on the rise. Most importantly however it explores the spiritual relation between humanity and God.

Lav Diaz pushes the boundaries of the medium with this tour de force, visually and thematically, leading us on a long, contemplative journey of discovery. Through his deeply intimate approach and glorious camera-work he represents human frailty at its most basic, acting as a resolute, poetic meditation on the human condition.

Diaz's cerebral masterwork is nothing short of high art, proving him to be one of the true visionaries working in contemporary world cinema.

There was a lot of hype for Norte: The End of History before it was released, it went from film festival to film festival winning tons of awards and be praised as one of the greatest films of the past few years. And when it was finally released to more "general audiences," they were split on it. And in Norte's defense, there are few films that could live up to that much hype. Norte: The End of History follows two different protagonists one of them being Fabian (played by Sid Lucerio) a brilliant Pilipino law student who is disgusted by the world, and believes himself to be sort of an übermensch. And the other being Joaquin (played by Archie Alemania) a poor lower class worker, who is just trying to provide for his family. The only thing that links these two characters together is that they both use the same money-lender. One day Fabian decides that he is done with his petty life of having pretentious arguments with his snobbish friends and decides to cut of all relationships with them, and he also decides to kill his money-lender, as both an act to show his dominance and to clear his debt. The money-lender's death is then pinned on Joaquin, who is sentenced to prison with no hope of ever leaving.

Lav Diaz, the director of Norte, was very clearly inspired by Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment when he made Norte. Except Lav Diaz takes a much darker and more nihilistic approach to the story. Lav Diaz's films are infamous for their massive length and slow pace. Norte tells a story, that would be told in 2 hours if handled by a more "normal" director, in over 4 hours. So if you're someone who has trouble sitting through long films, Norte might not be for you. And I won't lie even as someone who is familiar with longer films and slower films, there were still parts in Norte that felt like they were going on for too long, and I think it would be better if Lav Diaz did cut back on the films length or quicken its pace. There are some scenes that I think are paced perfectly, like the murder scene and the climax, but there's a lot of stuff in the middle that just feels very unimportant and is really just bloating the run-time.

Even though there is very little in terms of graphic content shown on screen in Norte, it still manages to be one of the most shocking and dark films to come out of the past few years, all on the merit of the film's characters and their twisted view on morality. As you're watching the film you can't help but wonder, what was going Diaz's mind when he made it. All of the actors do excellent jobs in there roles especially Sid Lucerio, who unfortunately hasn't been in anything else of note, yet. The cinematography is also really good. Larry Manda, the cinematographer does a great job of portraying the slums of the Philippines as a desolate hellish landscape of sin and torment. And the last 45 minutes of Norte are executed perfectly. If you're someone who doesn't mind long run-times and slow pacing, then I would highly recommend Norte: The End of History to you.

7.6/10

Niemand bleibt hier. Who said that? A narrator in images widening the knowledge of the other side of the world. Incredible suction and depth in some pictures. Deeply related with Andrei Tarkovsky and Béla Tarr. And Jacques Tati? But most of the time the images co-exist with a story. Sometimes even words. And expressions. Lav Diaz fumbles in terms of dialogue and instruction of actors. Sometimes it slips into the conventional.

The film opens with the character Fabian having a heated discussion with two of his lecturers. He tries to elaborate on his philosophies on life and society, how eradication of bad (evil) elements is the only way to progress. From his conversations with his law school friends, we understand that he has left college due to depression and discontent in life, his disillusionment with his country, whose history is marred by betrayals and unpunished crimes. His upbringing and behaviour makes us realise he's a sociopath, feeling distant from almost everything around. Trying to put his theory into practice, he murders an unsympathetic moneylender, and unavoidably (unplanned), her daughter as well.

Loosely based on Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment', Lav Diaz's four-hour saga explores how a certain crime affects the lives of three individuals - highly intelligent but depressed Fabian who commits the murder, poor and good-hearted Joaquin who's wrongly convicted of the murder, and Eliza (Joaquin's wife) who now has to work endlessly in order to take care of her two kids and Joaquin's sister. The guilt consumes Fabian and drives him to insanity; though he evades getting caught, he feels his soul is corrupted forever. Joaquin maintains his innocence and incorruptible goodness, hoping it results in eventual justice. And Eliza keeps on persevering in the face of injustice, and carries on with her life in eternal despair. Thus, in the three characters we see hope, despair, and the lack of both.

Mostly taken in long takes, with no close-ups or background music, Lav Diaz immerses us into the lives of these three people, with scenes mostly covering their routine activities or conversations. Even without the usual sentimental gimmicks, Diaz gives us his pessimistic and heartbreaking worldview, where life is punctuated with inequality and injustice. I wouldn't exclude a single minute from the movie's 250-minute runtime (which many viewers complain about) because the film progresses at the right pace, giving us enough time to contemplate on the themes surrounding the story - existence, evil (its presence, and whether to destroy the source of it, or evil itself), crime, blame, morality, conscience, injustice, perseverance, hope, universal love and fate; without contemplation and debate (internal or otherwise), watching this film would be wasted potential. For example, blame; who or what should Eliza blame for their situation? The justice system which wrongly but swiftly convicts her husband, or their lawyer who inefficiently pleaded their case, or the murderer who ran away from the scene, or the moneylender herself for being so unscrupulous that her husband attacked her earlier, or the accident which caused the moneylender to have a vicious grip on their lives, or herself for stopping her husband to work abroad before all this mess? So, who is she supposed to be angry at?

With spectacular setting and talented actors (especially, the talented Miss Angeli Bayani), Director Lav Diaz efficiently weaves an sweeping and symmetric tale, in which all the elements make complete sense by the end. No matter how much or what I write, it couldn't possibly illustrate the film's complete worth. Ultimately, 'Norte' is poignant and devastating, and is bound to leave a scar on one's soul.