Lav Diaz’s 'Phantosmia': 10 reasons why this is his best yet
The availability of “Phantosmia” by auteur Lav Diaz in commercial theaters may have come as a surprise to his followers, who are used to seeing his films in local festivals like QCinema and Cinemalaya with limited screening schedules.
This latest film by Diaz is a story about redemption and healing, centered on the struggles of a former soldier trying to get back to his normal self after suffering from psychological traumas that come with the job. Veteran actor Ronnie Lazaro is Master Sergeant Hilarion Zabala, who suffers from a rare hallucinatory olfactory condition called phantosmia, or phantom smell.
Zabala tries to go back to what’s left of the family he left behind, but they’re not the same anymore. He seeks healing in an island, taking a hermit-like job as an outpost prison guard. The former high-ranking discovers he has one, last mission to do and in the process, finds forgiveness and redemption, the peace of mind he is looking for.
The film runs for four hours and six minutes. Other actors who play lead characters are Janine Gutierrez as Reyna the abused adopted daughter of Narda, played by internationally acclaimed actress Hazel Orencio. There’s the abusive Major Lukas (played by actor Paul Jake Paule), who makes Reyna’s and Hilarion’s lives miserable.
Ten17P, co-producer of the film, announced the nationwide showing in select theaters on its Facebook page only over the weekend, to be exact, on Saturday, January 25, at 8:21 pm. This was re-shared by its co-producer, Diaz’s film outfit Sine Olivia Pilipinas and other social media pages that Diaz’s devotees follow.
It helped that the first day of showing, last Wednesday, fell on Chinese New Year, a holiday. Of all places, it was in a boutique mall down south of Metro Manila that I was able to catch an afternoon screening — the only schedule for the film on that day.
There were only the two of us, my teenaged daughter and I. Thirty minutes into the screening, a young couple came in. And that was it. The four of us in a well-air-conditioned theater that could accommodate, in my estimate, around 300 people.
The usher who also functioned as cashier in the ticket booth told me after the screening that if no one would come the following day, Thursday, a regular working day, there would be no Friday screening. But “Phantosmia” is still up in Vista Mall cinemas down south.
At any rate, this has been my second time to watch “Phantosmia” after catching it at QCinema International Film Festival last year, where the film had its Philippine premiere.
It had its world premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2024, as an out-of-competition entry.
My pointers would be for those who haven’t seen any of Diaz’s films and curious about what “slow cinema” is all about, and why Diaz is more celebrated abroad than in our country. This is also for those who may have seen just one of Diaz’s earlier films as a student required to do so and chose not to finish watching because of the length.
Here are 10 reasons why you should go to the nearest cinema and catch “Phantosmia”.
1. Ronnie Lazaro is such a brilliat actor. One may see him mostly in soap operas as someone else’s father or uncle or the bad guy. This is Ronnie’s fifth film with Diaz and we can’t imagine anyone playing Zabala than him.
2. Janine Gutierrez’s character as symbolic figure of the Philippines, the Inang Bayan. Reyna is mestiza, the bastard child of an American father and a Filipina mother who was abandoned as a child.
Almost losing her sanity, she is being pimped to strangers by the very same person supposed to take care of her, her foster mother Narda. This has been a groundbreaking role for Gutierrez and we are looking forward to her appearing more in a Lav Diaz film. (Spoiler alert) The most moving scene is when Reyna truly smiles for the first time, after Master Sargeant Zabala told her something like, “Hindi ka totoong mahina. Lumaban ka. Kaya mong maging malaya.”
3. The magnificent portrayals of Paul Jake Paule as Major Lukas, the deranged, epicurean administrator of Pulong Colony prison, and Hazel Orencio as Narda the heartless, greedy foster mother of Reyna and Setong, are easily etched in memory.
The way they make other characters’ lives miserable reminds us of real powerful figures in Philippine history who have made, or continue to make the lives of us, Filipinos, more destitute as years go by. Incidentally, Orencio and Paule had their earlier trainings also in theater, specifically in the now-inactive Gantimpala Theater Foundation.
4. Pinoy Rock icon Dong Abay as poet named Marlo. This role may just be a cameo but watching the composer-singer of “Banal Na Aso, Santong Kabayo,” “Es Em,” “Tsinelas,” among others, performing poetry in a Lav Diaz film is one major reason why you shouldn’t miss “Phantosmia.” The poet as narrator or commentator in Diaz’s film is a recurrent, essential character. One that easily comes to mind is Roeder Camañag as poet Benjamin Agusan in the 2007 film, nine-hour-long “Death in the Land of Encantos.” Diaz is probably one of the few filmmakers who still value the role of a wordsmith, a poet or a journalist in modern society.
5. The presence of theater actors, most especially from the Tanghalang Pilipino Actors Company. There’s Mark Lorenz as Lt. Isidro, former colleague of Master Sergeant Zabala. He will do anything to help his "General" as he finds ways to cope with his condition. The doctor (Lhorvie Nuevo-Tadioan) who diagnosed Zabala that he has olfactory hallucinations, the hunters (Vince Macapobre, Mitzi Comia, Heart Puyong) searching the jungle to capture or kill the Haring Musang (Wild Cat King), Setong the foster brother (Sri Arjhay Babon) of Janine Gutierrez, the grown-up but emotionally distant children (Toni Go-Yadao, Edrick Alcontado) of Zabala, they’re all from TP Actors Company and they are able to make us feel the scenes they’re in are like a four-corner stage.
6. There are no long takes that most audience members complain about in a Lav Diaz film. Some so-called movie reviewers even joked about the length, and wrote something like trimming the scenes where there is rain because they’re not necessary. Collective gasp.
The long takes are there because they’ve always been how Diaz intended them to be. The rain has to be there. In his previous works, there have been 20- to 30 minute-long takes for one scene. I remember one has Ronnie Lazaro crawling on a muddy grassy field, shouting the name of a lady he’s looking for in “Heremias, Book One: The Legend of the Lizard Princess”. One may go to the comfort room for five minutes, or outside the cinema for a quick snack, come back and Lazaro’s character would still be there on the screen, crawling, or probably standing up but closer to the camera.
But this is the reason why credible critics compare his films to experiencing something close to Zen meditation. The ability to focus on every detail, like rain drops on the pavement, grass, the mud, actor’s face, eventually would discard any kind of distractions. The rain, as one critic wrote, is like another actor telling its side of the story.
7. Using nature as effective tools in story-telling. Not only the rain, but bodies of water like rivers and lakes, the tranquility in a forest setting, the wind whooshing over the trees at night, these are essentials in any Lav Diaz film. For those not familiar with his works, it’s time to discover why he is regarded a rock star, a guru, in film festivals in Europe, US, India and other Southeast Asian countries.
8. Discovering or re-discovering black-and-white aesthetics. Like Diaz, our childhood was full of afternoons watching LVN-Sampaguita films in black-and-white. There is beauty in simple things and Direk Lav’s preference to use only black and white is one of the reasons why some critics view the experience something akin to meditation.
9. The absence of background music as an effective tool. Direk Lav uses natural sound in most of his films, be they birds chirping or an AM radio playing a “kundiman.”
Here in “Phantosmia,” there is that kind of silence. He lets actors and nature create the mood. If memory serves, the only time there’s live music in his previous films was, when an actor sings as required in the scene, like Ely Buendia playing the guitar and singing “Jocelyinang Baliwag” in “Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis” or Lolita Carbon singing an original song in “Lahi, Hayop”. Then of course, the musical film “Panahon Ng Halimaw” is an exception.
10. For a price of P500 per ticket, you get not only an equivalent of two films but a masterclass in slow cinema, or, better yet, filmmaking in general. Any Lav Diaz film is an opportunity to learn about the craft, the aesthetics of cinema. The experience could also mean, again, Zen meditation, as Hollywood icon Meryl Streep once said after experiencing “Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis”, “This guy, he rearranged the molecules in my brain.”
(Still showing in select cinemas, follow “Phantosmia” social media page for the links to the schedule.)
— LA, GMA Integrated News