Makikiraan Po (Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors)                 3 stars

My last film at The Chicago International Film Festival was the anti-colonial drama Makikiraan Po (Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors), by Filipino director Lav Diaz. The movie is set in 1617 Philippines, when imperial Spain was colonizing the Philippines by using the church to convert the indigenous people. Diaz is praised by many critics, but I have to say this is not my style of movie. At three hours in length, it is apparently one of Diaz’s shorter movies. (He previously made a nine-hour long movie called Death in the Land of Encantos.) In the movie a Spanish priest named Padre Enciso is ruling the local natives and converting them from their pagan religion to Catholicism. The men are being forced to build his grand church in the jungle, which has led to the deaths of many of them. Enciso takes advantage of the resulting widows, convincing them to have sex with him. Thus, he has many offspring of mixed race. One of the men he has fathered is Dungwen who now has his own family. Enciso needs a shipment of marble to be moved to the village as part of his church construction project, so he forces Dungwen to be part of the crew that will make this journey. (Never mind, that Dungwen needs to care for his family.) He and the other men are assured that wealth and land will be theirs upon completion of the mission. So, the crew of native men sets off on the mission to move the marble through the jungle that is occupied by dangerous marauders. We hear more of Dungwen’s story during the journey. At the same time at the village, Enciso has the local medicine woman named Babayeng Indimatandog imprisoned for practicing the native pagan religion, though she has many followers. The drama plays out in both settings, ultimately leading to tragedy for most of those involved. The film is done entirely in black and white and uses a narrow aspect ratio that is close to a square picture. All the scenes are done as static shots, often with the actors placed at some distance from the cameras. There is plenty of dialogue, but the movie seemed to be ponderously slow to me. Although the story centers around the building of a church, the church itself never appears on screen. It is just discussed by the characters. At one point in the story there is a massacre of the natives, only none of that action appears on screen. The audience is left to deduce what happened by seeing the aftermath and discussion by the characters. My suspicion is that the film’s budget wouldn’t allow for such sets or scenes, but maybe there is another explanation. I found that this story of oppression of indigenous people by a colonial power and the resulting tragedy is gripping and needs to be told, but Diaz’s style is not something I could enjoy.