Filipino master, Lav Diaz presents a tragic tale of contradictions and salvation in his meditative investigation film, Essential Truths of the Lake.
Lav Diaz’s latest film, Essential Truths of the Lake follows Hermes Papauran in an investigation for the missing person, Esmeralda. Using the same protagonist from his previous film When the Waves Are Gone, Hermes is caught at an impasse, rather than a confrontation in both film’s interrogation. Through Diaz’s signature filmmaking, we dissect the case with Hermes through static long takes in black and white photography unveiling Philippines’ history of abuse and cover-ups from their officials and leaders. In what may seem like a standard investigation, Diaz inserts a conflicting lens by having Hermes maneuver through the trials and tribulations of power and ethics in modern day Philippines using historical context of the country’s deep, troubled past. As Hermes gets deeper into his investigation, the more dire his psychological state becomes, revealing a systematic and detrimental treatment of power.
Premiering in the main competition at Locarno since 2014, Lav dives into the complex psyche of Hermes and his conflicted journey into the turmoil of the Philippines before and during Duterte’s presidency. We had the great privilege to sit down and talk to Lav during the Locarno Film Festival.
“I do the real writing during the shoot. I write a script every day. It’s very open, I really don’t know where the story will go.”
Film Fest Report: How does it feel to be back in Locarno?
Lav Diaz: Great, great. This is the third time. We won the Golden Leopard in 2014. In 2013, I was the head of the jury.
Film Fest Report: What is your writing process like? Most of your films are influenced on real world situations such as the Philippine Drug War and in this film, the volcano eruptions in Batangas.
Lav Diaz: I always start with the idea. Then, I anchor it with a very specific period about our country’s history. I create the characters around this period as if it’s 1896, “What happened in 1896?”. Well, that’s the Philippine Revolution. In the context of the Revolution, you create the characters, the milieu, and so on.
I do the real writing during the shoot. I write a script every day. It’s very open, I really don’t know where the story will go. Everybody in the production as well. I write the script at dawn; we plan everything in the morning. We shoot 15-22 days. It is always the same and we go back if again if there still needs to be done in the film.
Before the film I do the location scouting, so I can understand it well, making it easier during the shoot. And it should look and feel appropriate for the film, the period, politics, everything of the film, so it is all the work that goes into the film.
“Ethics […] is what we lack in our system. It’s not just the policeman, it’s the leaders. They become the law.”
Film Fest Report: Essential Truths of the Lake has a tragic figure in Hermes that felt literary that has influenced your films before such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and in this, references to Homer are made. Were there any literary influences here?
Lav Diaz: Not really. I was reading a lot of things. Random readings such as what happened during Duterte’s campaign against the drug wars. Newspapers, especially the human rights records and abuses of Duterte and Marcos. That’s why I put this conflicted character of the police investigator. To show how the system is being ran and not being ran the proper way.
That’s why the second image of the film is about ethics. That is what we lack in our system. It’s not just the policeman, it’s the leaders. They become the law. They impose things and impose the law and not follow it. We’re all complicit to this fucked up system. If we want to change things, we start with ethics. We should teach and impose ethics in this system. How to respect the rights of people and understand our rights of people. It’s about protecting people, not killing them.
Film Fest Report: There is the Filipino Eagle case about a missing person, Esmeralda, that is at the center of the film. Is this based on a true case or fiction?
Lav Diaz: It is mix of many things. We have a history of this. We start with the Philippine Revolution. We still don’t even have the body of Andrés Bonifacio, the Father of the Philippine Revolution. We already have this thing about missing Filipinos during the Marcos years, Japanese period, and during the American period. We have this long trauma about Filipinos going missing because of their political stances and beliefs.
I put the Philippine eagle as part of the semiotic discourse in the symbol of the Filipinos. We lose what we value such as the Philippine eagle in the dwindling forest. The eagles need the forest to survive. The eagle is an endangered species specific to this region in the Philippines.
We’ve been losing the soul because we’re allowing it. So, we become violent, it becomes so violate our language. It’s hard to go back, but we must struggle to go back to correct it.
Film Fest Report: How has filmmaking changed for you in the past ten years?
Lav Diaz: It’s very relative. When I was starting, I was embracing the sacrifice. Shooting alone on super 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm. When the digital came, it became easier, but there’s a trade-off. The look changes, and of course technology, the so-called upgrades involve much more expensive. There are trade-offs to all these things. You must sacrifice and embrace it as well.
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