Season of the Devil

Film - 2018

7,0

29.9K

Season of the Devil it's a movie with Piolo Pascual, Shaina Magdayao, Angel Aquino, Pinky Amador, Hazel Orencio Full cast. Directed by Lav Diaz. Original title Ang Panahon ng Halimaw Genre Music.

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Season of the Devil of

Federico Tyst Querin

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 finale, in Hugo's voice. Speaking of the finale, this is placed halfway step below that of Florentina Hubaldo, CTE: strong, bad, 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. Read all

plot

In the late 70s, a gang of militias, under the control of the military, terrorizes a remote village in the Philippines. The terror being inflicted on the populace is not just corporal but intensely psychological as well. They were constantly fed with apocryphal tales about the village leader. A few souls are not giving up. They are fighting. The poet/teacher/activist, Hugo Haniway, decides to find out the truth about the disappearance of his wife. A love story set in the darkest period of Philippine history, the Marcos Dictatorship. The narrative and the characters are a composite of real events and real people that happened and existed during the period. A Filipino rock opera.