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Autohystoria (2007)
Autohystoria (2007) was released at a time when earlier forms of digital feature filmmaking are gaining attention and, at the same time, getting more suspicion. Part of the suspicion came from exactly what Autohystoria’s filmmaking stands for: “long-takes” and “contemplative shots” are often conflated to “lazy” filmmaking. But it was admittedly a very novel take…
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Death of Nintendo (Philippines/USA, 2020) [LAAPFF 2020]
How does it feel to come of age at the end of history? Set in the early days of Francis Fukuyama’s declaration, Death of Nintendo finds the end of history building up in the lives of the kids from a 1990s provincial suburbia, the same time frame director Raya Martin’s last film, Smaller and Smaller Circles (2017) was set.…
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Smaller and Smaller Circles (Philippines, 2017)
Watching Smaller and Smaller Circles can be fruitful once you get past its formal lapses. Inconsistencies in tone are the first thing one notices from the film. At first, it feels like a dark, edgy thriller, then, later will seem to become an episode of an afternoon telenovela. Perhaps these lapses can actually be helpful in understanding…