An Investigation on the Night that Won’t Forget

EdieMaas

This is everything Diaz has done; its distillation. His temporal take on "holding space": holding time. A cradle. Here, ostensibly, for memory - though that seems, watching this, just another word for the deep subjectivities that become shared realities via his camera's slow gaze. What's seen, becomes. And becoming is a function of time. And if night is when time is suspended & memory consolidated, Diaz is the night.

Jason

100% top drawer Diaz. Why? I have never seen this movie before. This is a new form. A whole new way of conceptualizing the medium. Sure. Requires some effort to stay w/ it. But where it is going, ultimately, is towards revelation. And looking back upon the journey inspires tremendous reverence. I suspect not many of us will be won over by AN INVESTIGATION. But those who fall may be expected to fall hard.

ysbil

It's such a beautiful and powerful cinematic prayer : linking up the long interview with the black and white street shots, in reverence of a dead soul, of the dead souls. The very dark images at the end seem to invite us to a mass, alert our senses and predispose us to receive the poem-prayer in tagalog. Lav Diaz is really a great sculpter of light and sound. A great moment of cinema.

Stefan Drees

The first part is a little bit exhausting and doesn't have the kind of impact I see in other works by Lav Diaz. But the second - and shorter - part is very poetic and underlines his power to create stunning films.

Lynch/Fellini

This is how documentaries should be, featuring as little manipulation as possible. The way Diaz leaves his camera lingering on his subject and allows him to come in and out of frame at will is brilliant. It emphasizes that this is his recollection of the events surrounding the murder of his friend. The second half is Diaz's commentary on an individual's place in the universe and it's just engaging throughout!

fearraigh

I'd first heard of Tioseco and Bohinc's murder from a short film by José Luís Guerín, in which Bohinc featured. It was already a haunting reference, which made this film all the more immediate. It's not very cinematic but of a piece with Diaz's other films. Romulo is pained like the Ancient Mariner at his inability to fully do justice to his late friend. A film that sparkles in an almost chilling fashion.

David R Williams

"...a somber and naturalistic testimony of one who was left behind, searching for resolution but finding only more questions and ongoing suffering as circumstances conspire to prolong the agony...Diaz uses the events to comment on the nature of narrative, time and memory in their necessity for the attempt to create order from a series of otherwise incomprehensible events...."

Kevin Matthews

For the most part, this is one man talking to the camera, recounting a night that saw the death of two friends, and the subsequent, unsatisfactory, investigation. It's an interesting and honest piece, but doesn't add much to hold the attention of the viewer throughout.