"Lav Diaz is the film equivalent of Fyodor Dostoevsky or Leo Tolstoi on the cinema scene."
Lav should hear that--him or his producer Tony Veloria. But then, his Kriminal ng Baryo Concepcion IS inspired by Crime and Punishment...
"One observation I would like to make is, are the actors in this movie really great acters? Or is the writer/director, just brillant? My conclusion is that Lav is a brillant director and writer, because even though there was some really bad acting in the movie"
He didn't make an actress out of Klaudia Koronel and couldn't get a good performance out of Angel Aquino. He got a great one out of Raymond Bagatsing, but Raymond's really good...
Many in the cast ARE good--Joel, Yul, Gloria, Art. Curious here, what moments of bad acting are you thinking of?
"I feel the characters had no redemption."
SPOILERS
The old man represented it for Yul, but yes, we know how that turns out. Gloria and Joel might have hope; Gloria by going back to the Philippines (it took her son's death to make her feel like going) and seeing her children again, Joel Torre by confessing to the camera. I thought I saw hope there...
"Lav comes from a time, when Filipinos were very cynical, and were all sitting around, waiting for a Messiah to save them."
The Messiah they hoped for was Communism, actually, and if I remember right, Lav did some activism in his time (I have to check with him). Well, he WROTE about it, which is doing something, I think...
"The problems of the Philippines are caused by nobody but ourselves. And even if foreign invaders has persecuted as long ago, that was a long time ago, and we must move on."
I think Lav had something more complicated in mind. Sure he blames foreign influence, but (at least in the old man's voice) he also blames Joel and Gloria's generation (one major flaw may be that the old man refuses to put any blame on himself). So we are at fault too.
And the foreign influence doesn't stop with the past, it goes on even now with the children living in New Jersey (I'm thinking, for example, of the scene where the old man and Yul make gentle fun of Pricilla for not being able to speak Tagalog). I think the film says it's us and it's foreigners and it's still going on now.
"But it is not a film, in the typical sense, but more of an art work."
The Human Condition is 9 hours long, The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple is 27 hours long and The Cure for Insomnia, if I remember right, is about 100 hours. BWS is middling long, I think. It IS the longest Asian film meant for a single sitting, though....
"he has to learn to laugh more. Coz life is not as cynical, as he makes it seem. And once in awhile, we do smile. If not a lot even."
SPOILERS
Oh, the scenes with the drug addicts was plenty funny--specially "Shabu is the salvation of the Philippines" speech. I think he laughs just fine (just not obvious, though). May katok rin siya.
