It’s fair to say that Filipino director Lav Diaz moves to his own rhythm. With many of his films lasting around four to five hours – and 2004’s Evolution of a Filipino Family reaching nearly 11 – his approach to filmmaking is patient and contemplative even by the standards of slow cinema. His latest, When the Waves Are Gone, is easily his most accessibly, at a lean 187 minutes. This tale of state corruption and personal corrosion still bears all of the filmmaker’s hallmarks – even his genre exercises are deliberately paced and existentially focused – but there’s a doom-laden sense of contemporary urgency and narrative inevitability at play that give the film a temporally dislocated sense of propulsion. It’s akin to watching a car crash in slow motion. And it’s impossible to look away.
When the Waves Are Gone centres on two former colleagues in the Filipino police. Hermes (John Lloyd Cruz) is a renowned detective; a genius at solving cold cases. He’s also violent towards his wife, and is being internally hollowed out by the pogrom against alleged drug dealers instigated by Rodrigo Duterte. His anxiety is given physical form through a vicious case of psoriasis. Macabantay (Ronnie Lazaro) was Hermes’ superior and mentor until his protégé played a big part in getting him jailed for corruption. Released after 10 years and fuelled by religious mania, the vengeful Macabantay sets about tracking down his erstwhile friend.
For such a patient and composed stylist, Diaz wields symbolism with the same brutal force Hermes uses to pistol whip a colleague. When the Waves Are Gone is all about erosion, physical, moral, and spiritual. Taking down a corrupt colleague was undoubtedly a noble act, but Hermes is no Frank Serpico. He has been shaken to the core by his required role in the extra-judicial killings of the Duterte regime. Not only is this manifested in his awful behaviour towards family and colleagues, but in his own body reacting violently against him. As the increasingly deranged Macabantay reels him in randomly baptising people in his wake – occasionally with blackly comic effect – it’s not an overreach to see Hermes stumbling towards his hunter under his own volition as an act of subconscious penance.
Both Cruz and Lazaro are excellent. Diaz’s long, static takes force us uncomfortably into the psyches of his characters and the actors respond superbly, with Lazaro being particularly impressive as Macabanay. It would be easy for this broader, more manic character to feel out of place, but the quieter menace beneath the religious fervour is always visible. Larry Manda‘s gauzy 16mm photography adds extra grit and tactility to the story, and Diaz has an instinctive knack of knowing just how long a scene should last.
Of course, an accessible Lav Diaz film is still a Lav Diaz film, and this isn’t a cop drama as one would normally understand it. Many will still be put off by its pacing, and the eccentricity of some of its character beats – both characters get parallel dance sequences for example – are curious choices in this otherwise bleak tale. The journey is also slightly more interesting then the destination, with a vague sense of anti-climax lingering afterwards. But this is an excellent entry point into the work of a unique, single-minded multi-hyphenate. If his take on a genre film works, then the similarly Dostoevskian meditation on crime and punishment, Norte, the End of History would make a great companion piece.
Screening as part of Glasgow Film Festival 2023 Thu 2 and Fri 3 Mar 2023 at Glasgow Film Theatre