The first, true masterpiece by Lav Diaz, a 9-hour poem to celebrate the definitive death of trust in mankind. If the Latin maxim "homo homini lupus" is true in general, it is even more so in this film. The human being is an evil creature, born only for selfish purposes and to harm others. This other person is, in the film, the eponymous salesman who, in search of whoever stole his ox and destroyed his cart, his only sources of income (impossible not to think back, in this case, to Bicycle Thieves by Vittorio De Sica) , finds himself lost in a world without hope and, above all, without justice. The police turn their backs on him; his friends want to help him start again, proposing that he buy a new ox and build a new cart, but Heremias doesn't want this: he wants justice. And justice finally collapses under the blows of human selfishness when the protagonist denounces the young hooligans , alerting a policeman that he had heard them organize a kidnapping of a girl with rape and murder. Needless to say, the policeman orders him to leave, completely ignoring the issue, because the "leader" of the gang is the son of an important and dangerous man in the village; the priest to whom Heremias appeals refuses to help him, limiting himself to saying that he will pray and also inviting the poor seller to do the same. Faith, therefore, is the last resort of justice. But you know, faith is a very arbitrary question. Heremias makes a pact with God: he will wander and not eat for 40 days, until her death, if God saves the girl. But we will never know how he will end up. God is silent. Assuming it exists.