Lav Diaz's BATANG WEST SIDE Screens at Spectacle Microcinema on September 2nd

STILL: BATANG WEST SIDE (2001) BY LAV DIAZ, VIA SPECTACLE.

On Saturday, September 2nd, 2023, at 5pm, Spectacle Microcinema (124 S. 3rd Street) will screen Lav Diaz’s 2001 feature film BATANG WEST SIDE. This is the final program in Spectacle’s months-long retrospective of Diaz’s work, which began on March 25th, 2023, with a screening of the filmmaker’s 2014 Locarno Film Festival Golden Leopard winner FROM WHAT IS BEFORE.

As noted on Spectacle’s website, “the films of Lav Diaz are often more heard about than watched.” Despite the accolades his work has received, Diaz’s movies are rarely distributed in the United States, largely due to their boundary-pushing aesthetics. For example, BATANG WEST SIDE is a challenging and genre-bending work: at once a gritty murder mystery and a poignant exploration of the Filipino diaspora in America that runs at a staggering 301 minutes… just over five hours. Diaz has little regard for commercial filmmaking conventions, which is what makes his work so rare and vital in a cinematic landscape that too often prioritizes profit over personal vision.

As noted on Spectacle’s website:

A landmark work in Lav Diaz’s career that marks the transition between his early, impersonal studio films (BURGER BOYS, NAKED UNDER THE MOON, SERAFIN GERONIMO) and the durational-cinema masterpieces that he is known for, BATANG WEST SIDE has an important and unique place in Diaz’s filmography. Shot in color on 35mm around Jersey City, BATANG WEST SIDE is a noirish police procedural that examines Filipino American immigrant communities and the myriad social and psychological problems they face. Nearly impossible to get a hold of for years, this is an essential work that we’re happy to be able to present as a capstone to our recent Lav Diaz retrospective.

This fall, GME will distribute BATANG WEST SIDE, along with Diaz’s 2018 short THE BOY WHO CHOSE THE EARTH, in a forthcoming DVD/DSL combo pack made in collaboration with Edition-Filmmuseum. In the stunning 20-page booklet that accompanies this release, Diaz writes:

I thought the film would run three hours, but during editing I saw that it would run longer and I didn’t try to alter this condition; I allowed it to flow naturally. I allowed it to become organic, to acquire a life of its own… I don’t bend to the conventions of editing, or of length; I refused to follow the dictates of industry. There has been no manipulation to force me to conform to tradition, to what has been done before… I refuse to compromise the integrity of the work to please limiting, emasculating ‘tradition’… the objective of BATANG WEST SIDE [is] the examination of the Filipino consciousness. Why are the Philippines the way they are now? The Filipino people? Philippine cinema?… Let’s not be contained and limited to convention and formula; we need to probe and probe, the explode the wall of corruption. The perspective is ever historical, and ever advancing. Ultimately, the objective of BATANG WEST SIDE is simple — change. Whoever wishes to hinder this film is an enemy of change. Whoever is an enemy of change is an enemy of Philippine Cinema.

Get your tickets to this rare and exciting screening by visiting Spectacle’s website, and stay tuned for our upcoming DVD/DSL release of BATANG WEST SIDE this fall!