Melancholia

Filipino with English subtitles

‘Why is there so much sadness and too much madness in this world? Is happiness just a concept? Is life just a process to measure people's pain?’ Lav Diaz posed these three questions at the premiere of Melancholia at the Venice Film Festival, where his outstanding film won the main prize in the Orizzonti secondary competition. On the one hand, Diaz's aesthetics are consistently pursued poetically: epic running time and detailed observation allow true-to-life immersion in the fates of the protagonists. Here it is a prostitute, her pimp and a nun whose existence in a beautiful northern Philippine province literally turns out to be trauma therapy. What remains of the desire for revolution? On the other hand, Melancholia becomes a self-critical scrutiny: Nothing is what it seems - the spiritual uprootedness and despair of a nation is revealed in layers. (Christoph Huber)

30-minute break after approx. 215 min

Photo: Austrian Film Museum