Among the more notable titles at last year’s edition of the Chicago International Film Festival was Lav Diaz’s “Magellan”; with his latest project, “Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors,” he seems to be trying to make a film that works as a compromise between that film and his earlier projects. Here, he tells a story that, although not literally connected to “Magellan,” shares enough thematic commonality to serve as a sort of spiritual sequel while using a visual aesthetic similar to those earlier films.
The film is set in the Philippines in 1617, during the time in which the country was enduring forced colonization at the hands of Spain, represented here by Padre Enciso (Bart Guingona), a priest who has been charged with converting the indigenous population to Catholicism and establishing the Church as the dominant force of the land by any and all means, mostly by enslaving the men and using the women as sexual playthings.
For the past ten years, he has overseen the construction of a church in the middle of the jungle to symbolically cement the Church’s new position in this land. When a heavy load of valuable marble arrives, he orders his estranged son, Dungwen (Christian Bables), to lead a party of slaves to retrieve it and carry it through the jungle to the construction site.
The journey is especially risky because bandits led by the fearsome Baru-bari (Yul Servo) would kill them all to get their hands on the marble. While Dungwen and his group struggle with their task, Enciso tries to further solidify his hold on the people by imprisoning Babayeng Indimatandog (Isabel Sandoval), a beloved local faith healer and, by extension, a rebuke to everything Enciso represents.
The basic premise—a group of men struggling to haul delicate cargo over dangerous jungle terrain—will bring to mind Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1953 existential action classic “The Wages of Fear” and/or William Friedkin’s 1977 remake “Sorcerer.” However, Diaz doesn’t milk the material for the usual thrills. Although he builds plenty of tension as Dungwen’s group makes their way through the jungle, where death lurks everywhere, he generally declines to show details when something does happen. Instead, he lingers on the aftermath of dead bodies and shattered spirits. Diaz never actually shows the church, whose construction drives the narrative, over the course of the film.
Some might see this as a cheat, but it is an approach that proves strangely effective for the story he is telling. What is most horrifying about the incursion of people like Enciso is not so much the specifics of the brutality that they imposed as much as the fact that it became so commonplace. Even Enciso, as monstrous as he is, isn’t the real problem—at any point in this story, he could die, and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. What he represents is the real problem. As we learn, it is not quite as easy to get rid of once it gets a toehold, either by the presence of a church that will theoretically outlive those charged with building it, or by the children born out of the sexual subjugation wrought by Enciso and others like him (including Dungwen).
“Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors” is long and sometimes exhausting in both its severe visual approach (as in many of Diaz’s films, the scenes play out in front of an unmoving camera) and the lack of any moments of catharsis, either for the characters on the screen or those of us in the audience. And yet, for those with the patience to sit through it, the film is a valuable work from one of the more interesting directors on the current international scene. It grapples with the horrors of colonialism and oppression in a quietly powerful manner, contemplating the lives lost as a result and how those wounds remain open even today.
Moving from the past to the immediate present, Ali Asgari’s drama “A Bit of Light” takes place in Tehran at the start of the current U.S.-Iran war, though the conflict’s realities force the production to move partway through to Turkey. It follows Arash (Missagh Zareh), a middle-aged doctor whose practice has just been shut down and whose license has been revoked by the authorities for giving medical attention to protestors.
Feeling that he can no longer live a fulfilling life under his current circumstances, he has decided that he is going to take his own life. Over the next 87 minutes, the film follows him as he wraps up his affairs and meets with his three younger siblings and, eventually, his mother to inform them of his decision and prepare them ahead of time.
Not surprisingly, his siblings don’t take the news well and try to talk him out of it, drawing on their own experiences. His brother, Maziar (Ramtin Daghigh), breaks down into sobs while at the same time imploring Arash to delve into the temptations of booze, drugs, and women as a better alternative to suicide. On the other hand, his younger sister, Mahsa (Sadaf Asgari), is a spiritually attuned yoga instructor who suggests that the very same demons and hurts driving him to this irrevocable act will continue to haunt him in the next world. By contrast, older sister Massi (Forouzan Jamshidnejad) offers more practical objections, undercut by what feels like preexisting issues between her and Arash.
As he heads to the meeting with his mother, his brother and sisters join him in his increasingly crowded car, and Arash has several other encounters. He attends a performance art piece about a mother and son bidding farewell to each other, where he is unexpectedly called on stage to participate in a visit with a badly wounded protester he has been surreptitiously treating. There, he struggles to tell the man’s frantic mother that he can’t treat him anymore. Inevitably, these encounters and discussions begin to affect Arash’s resolve, and by the time he arrives at his mother’s place, he is no longer quite sure what to do.
“A Bit of Light” could easily descend into a mass of gloppy sentiment and curdled whimsy along the lines of a typical Taika Waititi outing, and Waititi’s executive producer credit may strike some observers as a warning sign. Thankfully, it deftly balances family drama, dark humor, and anger at the U.S.-Iran conflict in a low-key but undeniably effective way. This is thanks in no small part to the incisive screenplay by Asgari and co-writer Shadmehr Rastin (who also wrote last year’s “It Was Just an Accident”), which knows how to make its points without clanging viewers over the head. The film also benefits from a stellar central performance by Zareh, best known for his brilliant turn as the terrifying father at the center of “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” whose work here is a different tone and approach, though just as mesmerizing.
Another strong performance, this time from celebrated Chilean actress Pauline García, anchors Neto Villalobos’s family drama-tuned-thriller “Love is the Monster.” Set in a vaguely dystopian future in which all of the men are off fighting in some distant war, the well-off live in highly guarded communities, and there is the constant threat of children being kidnapped for ransom by striking workers stuck outside those gates.
One of them is Abuela (Paulina Garcia), a woman about 70 whose relationship with her daughter (Natalia Regidor) is one of benign estrangement. After messing up with her own child, Abuela is determined to make it up to her beloved granddaughter (Gloriana Vargas). Knowing that she doesn’t have that much longer to live, she is determined to spend as much time with her grandchild as possible. But more often than not, she messes things up (inadvertently locking the child in her car at one point), heightening tensions between her and her daughter. That said, Abuela will do anything for the child, and when the tensions outside the gates touch them personally, she shows just how far she’ll go to prove that love.
To be honest, Villalobos and Diego van der Laat’s screenplay feels a bit dodgy. It never quite weaves the family issues with the outside tensions in a fully satisfactory way, and once it shifts fully into thriller mode, it becomes much less interesting. However, Garcia’s performance holds our interest; she plays her character not as some kind of kooky old granny, but as a deeply flawed woman who knows she’s made big mistakes and is determined to make amends, no matter the cost.
At times, she pushes things too far, and Garcia doesn’t shy away from making the character as unsympathetic as she is meant to be—you always get the sense that the daughter’s estrangement from her is more than justified. At the same time, the scenes between her and her granddaughter are lovely, as she and Vargas demonstrate a convincing onscreen rapport.
“Love is the Monster” may be contrived in its attempts to show how genuine love can curdle into something darker and uglier. But Garcia’s performance makes it worth watching despite its flaws.
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