‘Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors’ Review: Lav Diaz Delivers an Immaculate, Slow-Burn Period Drama of Rare and Restless Insight — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Lav Diaz directed "Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors," a 151-minute black-and-white companion piece to his Cannes-premiered "Magellan," set in 1617 on Luzon island under Spanish colonial rule
- Padre Enciso (Bart Guingona), a Spanish priest deputized to "civilize" the island and build a church, has fathered children with local women he dismisses as "monkeys" — a relationship the village women call "visiting" and the men call "fucking"
- Dungwen (Christian Bables), Enciso's mestizo son who refuses to acknowledge his Spanish heritage, is forced to lead a deadly jungle expedition to fetch marble for the church altar
- Babayeng Indimatadog (Isabel Sandoval), a traveling healer resisting Christian conversion, is captured by Enciso's men and imprisoned; her brother Himamat (Ronnie Lazaro) petitions for her release
- Bari Bari (Yul Servo) leads poisoned-arrow raids that have killed many of the expedition workers, whose widows Enciso then beds
- The review notes Diaz's stylistic hallmarks: he refuses close-ups, uses Kurosawa-like wide compositions, omits violence itself to show only its lead-up and aftermath, and leaves Father Enciso's ultimate fate deliberately ambiguous
Why it matters: Diaz refuses the catharsis of watching Enciso face justice or native peoples unite in revolt — instead closing with "it shall be achieved, this vision of liberation" and leaving the priest's fate open, an artistic choice that distinguishes the film from conventional colonial-revenge narratives and underscores Diaz's stated priority of truth over storytelling convention.
Ask SkimNews
