Evolution of a Filipino Family (A viewer's guide)

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Joshua Polanski's Guided Film Club - Discursions in Time: Slow and Poetic Cinema(s) (announced here) ended with a bang(er) = Lav DIAZ's record breaking durational drama behemoth, Evolution of a Filipino Family (2004) and an insightful online disccussion. You can do it too.


What you ought to know before getting into Lav DIAZ's 10h24' long epic saga (spoiler free):


1) - The events depicted in the film, around the Gallardo clan, take place in The Philippines, between 1971 and 1987.

2) - The Philippines have a history of conversions, conquests, occupations, and colonisations:

  • Islamisation (XIVth century)
  • Spanish colonisation and evangelisation (1521-1898) since Magellan
  • American rule (1898-1946+) USA economic influence
  • Japanese occupation (1942-45) during WWII
  • Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship (1972-1986) martial law (1972-1981) 
  • Assassination of father Tullio Favali (1985) Roman catholic priest
  • Democracy (1987-)
3) - Lav DIAZ was born on December 30, 1958, in Mindanao (southern island of The Philippines)

4) - The production of the film stretches between 1994 and 2004.

5) - According to Lav DIAZ, "Malay Time", or "Mindanao Time", is "The bastardized Filipino perspective on time and space"

6) - The Gallardo clan's family tree:

(Help me correct this prospective chart if you can spot any mistake)

7) - The feminine narrator voice of the opening sequence saying "This is the tale of my grandmother, my father, my mother, my aunt Hilda, the story of my sisters and myself, and the story of Raynaldo." might be the one of Huling (although it is not explicited in the film).

8) - Take a break whenever you want, as often as you want, or never come back to the film... anything goes.

9) - Helpful bibliography to read either before or after watching the film (reading list provided by Joshua Polanski for his Guided Film Club: Discursions in time: Slow and Poetic Cinema(s)):
BONUS BOOKS : 
10) - Join the elite club of the chosen few who made it till the end.




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Watch more films like Evolution of a Filipino Family (full list at my letterboxd):

  • Prologue to the Great Desaparecido (2013/Lav Diaz)
  • A Short Film About the Indio Nacional (2005/Raya Martin)
  • Now Showing (2008/Raya Martin)
    4h40' long contemplative family life of one young girl, Rita, in Manila (The Philippines) in 3 epochs from the 90ies (Film review at Unspoken Cinema)
  • Insiang (1976/Lino Brocka)
  • The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978/Olmi)
    3h long epic saga of several Italian peasant families striving through the seasons of a couple years
  • The Best of Youth (2003/Giordana)
    6h long epic saga of 2 brothers from a Rome family from 1966 onward through the difficult decades of political turmoil of Italy
  • Profils paysans : l'approche (2001/Depardon) / Profils paysans : le quotidien (2005/Depardon) / Modern Life (2008/Depardon) DOC
    4h30' long epic documentary saga in 3 episodes of several farmer families living remotely in the French mountains over 9 years.
  • The Life of Oharu (1952/Mizoguchi)
    2h15' long melodrama about the downfall of a noblewoman during the Edo Period in Japan.
  • The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959/Kobayashi) / The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1959/Kobayashi) / The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961/Kobayashi)
    9h30' long epic saga of a Japanese family, pacifist and socialist, in Manchuria, during WWII's Japan totalitarian rule.
  • Fires on the Plain (1959/Ichikawa)
    1h45 long drama of a tubercular Japanese private struggling to survive in The occupied Philippines at the very end of WWII
Watch more contemplative films depicting "Malay Time":
  • Paraguayan Hammock (2006/Encina)
  • Honour of the Knights (2006/Serra)
  • Freedom (2000/Bartas)
  • Stray Dogs (2013/Tsai)
  • The River (1997/Tsai)




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