A Short Film About the Indio Nacional (Or the Prolonged Sorrow of Flilpinos) (2006)

Genres - Avant-garde / Experimental, Drama  |   Sub-Genres - Historical Epic, Political Drama  |   Run Time - 97 min.  |   Countries - Philippines  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Nathan Southern

With his experimental work A Short Film about the Indio Nacional (Or the Prolonged Sorrow of Flilpinos), director Raya Martin creates a tetrapartite homage to the D.W. Griffith-era silent film - with marked influence by the French realists - and weaves a sociopolitical fable about the Filipino struggle for independence during the last decade of the 19th century. After a 23-minute, color opening sequence (done on video with three shots and a fixed camera) that has a man reading an allegorical story about the plight of the nation to his wife, Martin tells three consecutive stories in black-and-white - stories of male nationals coming to a gradual understanding of the meaning of liberty, first a young boy, then an adolescent, then an adult man. Thus, the film also functions as an unbridled homage to the common person.

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Philippines