Season of the Devil is, in true Diaz style, the deconstruction of a genre. The musical, in this case. Anti-musical par excellence, there is no room for music, there is no room for dance. Singing, here, is the only form of communication, speech is relegated to very few, fleeting lines.
Singing is nothing new in Lav Diaz's cinema. We think of the wonderful beginning of Century of Birthing, with the baptism accompanied by the singing of Father Tiburcio; let's think of the poignant scene of the woman alone in the forest, at night, in Melancholia.
Dedicated to the victims of the Martial Law instituted under the Marcos regime, Season of the Devil does "good but not very well". And, paradoxically, the "not very well" comes precisely from the songs, each characterized by a few verses, repeated to the point of becoming almost annoying. Certainly, from a musical point of view, the highest point is reached by the refrain of the soldiers' songs (the beautiful "la la, la la"), sublimated in the ending, in Hugo's voice.
Speaking of the ending, this ranks half a step below that of Florentina Hubaldo, CTE: strong, mean, ruthless. As is the character of Hazel Orencio, who here embodies the perfect antithesis of the protagonist, again played by her, of the 2012 film: just as Florentina was wonderful, so she was wonderful in embodying all the evil of Philippine Martial Law.