Sunday | May 31, 2015 4:00 pm

Century of Birthing
(Siglo ng pagluluwal)

Directed by Lav Diaz.
With Angel Aquino, Joel Torre, Perry Dizon.
Philippines, 2011, digital video, black & white, 360 min.
Filipino and Tagalog with English subtitles.

Century of Birthing finds Diaz taking stock of the creative process after three years during which he found himself unable to complete a film. The protagonist is a Diaz-like filmmaker whose struggles are juxtaposed with scenes from the lives of a Christian cult living in the countryside. Out of these storylines emerges a meditation on art and faith, the rational and the irrational, the purpose of creativity, and the relation between the political and the spiritual. The filmmaker finds himself growing more and more ensnared in a thicket of doubt until a madwoman enters the scene.