Phantosmia

Each of Lav Diaz’s films are based the same obsession: the violence of history and its effects on individual experience. Here the extraordinary Ronnie Lazaro plays Sergeant Hilarion Zabalam, whose diaries (1979-80) partially inspired the film. In the late 1950s and 1960s, the sergeant annihilated communists and Muslims, naively believing he was fulfilling his patriotic duty. PHANTOSMIA refers to his condition: the sergeant suffers from olfactory hallucinations that are an expression of his trauma. Too stubborn to seek help, he finally begins a therapy that consists of returning to work as a soldier and writing a diary, which introduces significant flashbacks in turn. The film’s four-hour duration is necessary because finding absolution within the conscience requires time, a form of silent work that can be best discerned when the sergeant begins to work in a penal colony on the island of Pulo. The cinematic syntax prioritises fixed long shots, all in black and white. The jungle is thus rendered at once grey and more brilliant, as the geometric framings seem to offer shelter to both the beauty of the ecosystem and the silent dramas of the protagonists, as if both nothing and everything were being expressed at the same time. (Roger Koza)

On October 18th in the presence of Hazel Orencio.

Lav Diaz: NAKED UNDER THE MOON (1999), EVOLUTION OF A FILIPINO FAMILY (2004), DEATH IN THE LAND OF ENCANTOS (2007), MELANCHOLIA (2008), PURGATORIO (2009), CENTURY OF BIRTHING (2011), FLORENTINA HUBALDO (2012), NORTE, THE END OF HISTORY (2013), FROM WHAT IS BEFORE (2014), LULLABY TO THE SORROWFUL MYSTERY (2016), THE WOMAN WHO LEFT (2016), THE BOY WHO CHOSE THE EARTH (2018, Viennale-Trailer), THE HALT (2019), GENUS PAN (2020), HISTORY OF HA (2021), WHEN THE WAVES ARE GONE (2022), ESSENTIAL TRUTHS OF THE LAKE (2023)