Elegy to the Visitor from the Revolution

El Biffo

80 minutes of Diaz seems so minimal, like a trailer! If you have not been able to take the plunge and watch one of Lav Diaz's 5 or 10 hour films, this Lav's for you. But it would have been more effective if we had sat with the prostitute in the street for hours as she fails to attract a customer, not just 20 minutes.

msmichel

Slighter in both length and content, Diaz's 'Elegy' boasts his usual high production values and long takes but seems under realized and under thought.

Brotherdeacon

3 & a half. A passionate mess which still grows on me although it's been months now since I've watched it.

Zac Weber

A short film for Lav Diaz, but one that still feels familiar for audiences who know his work. The moving water and static camerawork recall the cinema of attractions tradition, something you'll also find in the director's longer endeavors. I always feel this incredible mix of mystery and intimacy when Diaz transports me to his beloved Philippines.

Jason

Another meditation. At eighty minutes, ELEGY would count as a short film from Diaz; a tiny package of vignettes. If not for the title (which is slightly vague) and access to a plot synopsis, it would be exceedingly difficult to place the action here in terms of the context of the titular visitor, who is a figure transported from the past. Indeed, this is slow cinema processed through the eyes of even slower times.

saitosouta

80 minutes, still Lav Diaz. There is humidly harsh reality in Phillipines with insomniac nights, signs of begrimed violences & sounds of a guitar (played by Diaz himself) like a wolf's howling. Diaz makes this into the mysterious mood by tranquilly powerful presence of Hazel Orencio & zen-like long take which the more continues, the deeper a world is divided into suffocating reality & intimate illusion. Impressive.

James

I'm not watching this-it's only 80 minutes long for gods sake! Lav, pull yourself together mate, what's next, cartoons?!

Nabil Hamzaki

""She's always in my dreams. The woman from the past. From the time of Andres Bonifacio and Jose Rizal. She looks like that. From the past. She is always sad. And crying. She's always in my dreams."