Philippines, 1974: As Marcos entrenches his oppressive regime ever more firmly following the imposition of martial law in 1972, Servando Monzon III, heir to the hacienda and family businesses of his powerful clan, refuses to capitulate to the dictator's plans to control the country. Lav Diaz, a tireless and incisive probe of the shadowy areas of Philippine history, offers here, with this adaptation of the short story and screenplay by Ricardo Lee Servando Magdamag, a film with epic scope. The ambition, as the title unequivocally indicates, is nothing less than to scrutinize Philippine violence, to explore its roots, from Spanish colonization to the present day. Feudalism and power relations are thus scrutinized. Carried by a powerful cast—John Lloyd Cruz, in the lead role, is a huge television and film celebrity in the Philippines—this "sine novela," to use the words written at the beginning, blends the codes of the telenovela with the cinema of Lav Diaz, which at first glance seems quite distant. The story unfolds over time the mutual relationships of a profusion of characters, filmed in a sumptuous black and white that is now the subject of most of his films. The filmmaker himself frames these magnificent, stretching shots, sensory experiences of tableaux vivants attentive to the bodies inscribed in a place as well as to the languages ​​used, to the inner movements and the dead times. In this film, both a tragic fresco set in the past and a tale of an "endless nightmare," Lav Diaz assumes a dual dimension that is allegorical—figures of the philosopher or the blind—and informative, like the revolutionary instruction meetings that punctuate the story. This "tale of violence" is also a long-winded film with very contemporary resonances, as recalled by the very recent election to the presidency of another Marcos, devoted son of the previous one.