Let us Through, Dear Ancestors

From Viennale

After flirting with high-definition colour and the international star system, Lav Diaz is back to his high-contrast monochrome ways in a (comparatively) brief and focused addition to his chronicle of the early, unstable years of Spanish rule in the Philippines. On an island in 1617, Diaz assembles elements straight out of a Western: a church being built; roaming bandits; campfires (and their attendant smoke, a Diaz fetish); a gaggle of exploited women; civilisers vs the “Indios.” The reversal is that the malevolent force is Christianity, as arrogant, lecherous Spanish Father Enciso seeks to finalise his religious colonisation by finishing the construction of said church, a process which has already killed most of the island’s men and made their women his prey. He marshals his estranged son Dungwen to transport marble for the altar across the unforgiving landscape, a journey that involves eluding the notorious Bari Bari. In stunt casting on par with Roger Koza in MAGALHÃES (2025), Diaz convinced director Isabel Sandoval to play faith healer Babayeng Indimatandog (the names here are something else), whose animist ways are seen by Enciso as a threat. But the real star, as always, is Diaz’s majestic, incomparable mise-en-scène. (Mark Peranson)