This Tuesday April 29, the critically-acclaimed movie Norte : Hangganan ng Kasaysayan (North, the End of History) by Mindanao-born director Lav Diaz will have its one-time special screening at the Abreeza Mall Cinema at 6:30 pm.
The film has been cited by critics worldwide as one of the best films of 2013 since it premiered in the prestigious Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard screening in France to a standing ovation.
Norte was cited by the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound as one of the top ten films in 2013, was ranked second best by Cinemascope Magazine, and was picked by Toronto International Film Festival senior programmer James Quandt as the best film of 2013.
Quandt said “Lav Diaz’s Dostoyevskian mini-epic… may prove the greatest work of the Philippine New Wave.”
The movie is a loose adaptation of “Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, where the story follows the lives of two characters, a troubled law student who kills a moneylender and a vendor who was jailed for the crime. The movie follows the descent of the student from his guilt while the wrongly accused vendor languishes but finds redemption in prison.
Movie critic Daniel Kasman wrote that the movie was “an unsparing portrait of youthful reactions to economic and ideological distress in the Philippines… a three-person tapestry told across expanses of years and geography remains intimate in its deference to its individual characters”
Pulitzer-prize winning critic Wesley Morris described Norte as “an astonishing work of life, death, and art that isn’t bluntly political, vapidly violent, or completely self-obsessed”.
Cinemascope contributor Boris Nelepo wrote that Diaz’s movies including Norte “never shies away from the many dangers of the present-day Philippines. Set in a land not for the faint of heart, his stories habitually deal with theft, murder, and rape, yet the violence he strives to trace to its root is neither graphic nor gratuitous––more often than not, the violent episodes themselves are actually pushed offscreen. ”
Norte was ranked as the second highest-rated film of the Cannes Festival in 2013 and has been picked up for distribution in France, United States and United Kingdom.
Diaz, who was born in Datu Paglas, Maguindanao, has directed 12 movies starting with his debut movie Kriminal ng Baryo Concepcion (The Criminal of Barrio Concepcion) in 1998.
His movies have earned positive reviews in international festivals, including Batang West Side which won Best Picture at the SIngapore International Film Festival, Cinemaila International Film Festival and Gawad Urian. He also received another Gawad Urian for his 2005 film Evolution of a Filipino Family. His 2008 film Melancholia, which dealt with victims of summary executions, won the Orizzonti Grand Prize at the 65th Venice International.
However, Diaz’s films have been known for its length which had local moviehouses to distribute his movies.
Norte runs four hours and ten minutes long, and had special screenings in Manila and Cebu.(davaotoday.com)
