NYFF - Independencia

Raya Martin's Independencia is the young Filipino director's seventh film in only five years, and the second in a planned trilogy about the history of the Philippines, each filmed in a style representative of the period it depicts. Thus in Independencia, which takes place during the period of American colonization, Martin creates a highly artificial, obviously studio-set but remarkably beautiful jungle and films in the lush, high-contrast style of some late silent/early sound Hollywood films. In the Q&A Martin discussed the influence of a couple of Murnau's films, Sunrise being the most obvious. There is a brief prologue of a mother and son preparing to flee the imminent arrival of American soldiers. The remainder of the film takes place in the jungle, except for the sudden interruption of a fake newsreel in the middle of the film showing an atrocity committed by the Americans. The film has a bare minimum of story and relies mostly on the power of its sounds and images to present an archetypal Filipino family resisting the American occupation. It's basically a 77-minute avant-garde work, slowly paced, certainly lacking subtlety in the presentation of its villains, but creating a dazzling soundstage world if you're willing to immerse yourself in it.