Norte is the only one available on VOD. I've heard that or Batang West Side are his most immediate. But FYI Norte had me in tears so it's not necessarily "an easy watch." Haven't seen Batang yet.
Love that for me. On the topic of slow cinema, finally watched Tarkovsky’s Stalker for the first time last night
Stalker is probably my favorite Tarkovsky, although people I trust tell me Mirror is the best and I feel like I might have not appreciated it enough.
Mirror was my first by him, and I probably should’ve waited until I was more familiar with his voice. Need to see it again sometime. Still working my way through his work but Stalker is my favorite so far as well. Magical stuff.
I know there was some controversy about the historical accuracy of this and the depiction of the natives, but I don't really know enough about it to comment on its relevance, but something that was so powerful was the mundane nature of the violence. They are literally having normal conversations while bloody bodies fill the frame, and Diaz makes sure you grapple with that by putting them in the foreground while Magellan or the others are in the background. There are obvious parallels to Malick's The New World here as far as Age of Exploration-meets-art film, but where Malick saw beauty Diaz sees barbarism.
Havent seen this and am not an historian but here I go commenting anyway. There is no historical accurate movie. A director takes from bias sources and their imagination to create the most interesting narrative they can to say their piece. From there we can discuss if it was worth saying and if they did good job saying it.
I loved this. Felt short for Diaz, but I think it works as a highly concentrated dose of his style and an entry for people new to him. I simply enjoy luxuriating in his compositions, so every shot could be like a minute or two longer and I wouldn’t have minded. Color and sound in this are perfect. The one scene of the grieving mothers crying while running into the ocean really got to me. After reading on it a bit, I think the decision to make Lapulapu a mythical figure is pretty bold and brilliant.