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
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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.
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