Direkt zum Hauptbereich

The Ebb of Forgetting (Liryc Dela Cruz, Philippinen 2016)



Liryc de la Cruz is a young filmmaker from Mindanao, the Philippines, and was an assistant to Lav Diaz a couple of times (e.g. during Norte, the End of History). "Like walking through an endless dream" is a line that preludes the opening scene and what follows is the meanderings of a woman through woods and brushland, until she finally arrives at some kind of seashore - in search of another person which might exist only in her own troubled mind. You can obviously see and feel the influence of Lav Diaz in the imagery and the pictures of the first half of this 17 minute short film. So, this starts like a tribute to him, a continuation maybe that might give the filmmaker its own place in cinematic history. 

It definitely is film about remembrance aswell, which is more obvious in the second half. It is very open in its structure and towards a possible meaning. I guess, you could read some political meaning into it, too, as the Philippines have got a heavily burdenend history of political oppression through Spanish colonization. Especially in the final sequence of the film, located now in an airplane, where a woman watches out through the windows, might be an implication of leaving the home country behind - aswell as an elopement from personal memories and things lying in le passé of that person's biography. The Ebb of Forgetting - which is a somehow awkward wordplay with the opposite term Flut der Erinnerung / flood of memory was being screened in Locarno - is quite beautifully shot, though I don't really know what to do with and what to think about it. It left me a bit clueless, but nevertheless awakened my interest in the works of the filmmaker. Maybe a second viewing will clear some things up.

Michael Schleeh

***

You can watch the film on newly launched Tao Films VoD-platform that focuses on independent slow cinema in general. You can see films here that are very hard to come by anywhere else.

If you want to support Schneeland you could buy some Lav Diaz-Blu-ray via amazon through this link. Thanks.

***


Beliebte Posts aus diesem Blog

Abschied

Micha hat diesen Blog fast 15 Jahre mit großer Leidenschaft geführt. Seine Liebe zum asiatischen Kino hat ihn in dieser Zeit in Kontakt mit ganz unterschiedlichen Menschen gebracht. Viele von euch waren ihm, wenn auch nicht räumlich, so doch gedanklich und emotional sehr nah. Jetzt ist er am 30.12.2021 zuhause in Bonn gestorben. Ich habe mich entschlossen, Michas Schneeland-Blog auch in Zukunft nicht offline zu stellen. So können Interessierte weiterhin all die klugen, detailgenauen und begeisternden Gedanken zum asiatischen Kino nachlesen, die er über die Jahre festgehalten hat.  Neben seinem Blog hatte Micha 2021 noch ein neues Projekt aufgenommen: Gemeinsam mit der Videokünstlerin Sandra Ehlen und Thomas Laufersweiler von SchönerDenken hatte er begonnen, in einem Podcast das filmische Werk von Keisuke Kinoshita zu besprechen. 25 Beiträge sind so bis zu Michas Tod im Dezember noch entstanden. Alle zwei Wochen erscheint nun eine Folge dieser Kinoshita-Reihe. V ielleicht eine sc...

Two famous female writers from Japan: Yû Miri's 'Tokyo Ueno Station' & Hiromi Kawakami's 'People from my Neighbourhood'

TOKYO UENO STATION is not a straight narrative, but rather a quite experimental novel. As "the plot" unravels in flashbacks - by an obscure, already seemingly dead medium floating around Ueno park, the story of a life of hardship  is slowly being revealed. Of heavy labor, broken families, financial troubles and finally: homelessness. This is not the exotistic Japan you will find on a successful youtuber's channel. The events get illustrated by those of "greater dimensions", like the historical events around Ueno park hill during the Tokugawa period, the Great Kanto earthquake, the fire bombings at the end of WW II or the life of the Emperor. Quite often, Yû Miri uses methods of association, of glueing scraps and bits of pieces together in order to abstractly poetize the narrative flow . There are passages where ideas or narrative structures dominate the text, which only slowly floats back to its central plot. TOKYO UENO STATION is rather complex and surely is n...

Thittam Irandu (2021) ‘திட்டம் இரண்டு’ Directed by Vignesh Karthik

Thittam Irandu is a south Indian Tamil police procedural mixed with a nice love story that turns sour as the female detective investigates in a murder case and consecutively digs into the life of her new boyfriend . It is a very dark and atmospheric police procedural, with a hefty overstuffed script - but also with too many fade outs and accumulated scenes that make it almost impossible to find an organic flow in the long  run. It's getting quite annoying as it loses its 'natural rhythm' further down the road, if there's anything like that in filmmaking. Thittam Irandu could have been a lot better aswell with a little more effort especially in the sound department for there are endless repetitions of filler music. Wouldn't have been bad if it took care of the endless plot meanderings at the end aswell. But, there's good acting throughout, so I won't complain too much. Thittam Irandu is enjoyable for most of the running time, even though it starts to dra...