Considering his prolific output and the mammoth length his features often occupy, U.S. distribution isn’t always guaranteed for the films of Filipino director Lav Diaz. Thankfully, his next drama, The Woman Who Left, which runs just a short 3 hours and 47 minutes by comparison, will be arriving this month thanks to Kino Lorber, and now the U.S. trailer has arrived.
One of our recommended films of the month, the story concerns a woman who has spent 30 years in prison, only to be released after someone else confesses to her alleged crime. Her blissful release is tarnished when she realizes her old lover had set her up, causing a downward spiral in both of their lives.
“Lav Diaz’s Golden Lion winner from this year’s Venice Film Festival feels like something of a surprise because, for all its extended shots, luminous black-and-white photography, and socio-historical weight, The Woman Who Left is ultimately an unostentatious work,” we said in our review. “Compared to, say, Norte, The End of History’s remarkably grim ending, with its reaches into fantasy / metaphysics (don’t forget that Tarkovsky-esque levitation), there doesn’t seem to be quite the same need to impress or belabor the point.”
Check out the trailer and poster below.
A woman discovers that, after 30 years in prison, her friend and fellow inmate committed the murder she was accused of, leading to her release and discovery of the man who framed her. Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival last year, Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz’s Tolstoy-inspired epic is a story of revenge deferred, “a meditation on the nature of Goodness in a world of deceit and corruption” (Olaf Moller, Film Comment) that functions as a slow-build tale of urban theater and class warfare, and a sensitive expression of family and forgiveness. A Kino Lorber release.
The Woman Who Left opens on May 19.