By Ruel S. De Vera, Associate Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

THERE’S an interesting buzz surrounding Lav Diaz’s eight-hour film “Melancholia,” which, it must be noted, is NOT being shown in Metro Manila. The MTRCB has, apparently, not been able to watch it and thus give it a required rating, even while the MTRCB chair Consoliza Laguardia denies it’s not because it’s too long. The buzz is interesting because Diaz’s film received the Orizzonti Grand Prize of Mostra 2008–yet we won’t get to watch it. The other buzz comes from the sheer amazement of people that someone actually made an eight-hour film. It boggles the mind for some. So we think of the longest movies ever made.

According to Wikipedia, Diaz’s film does not even come close to the longest movie ever made, the 27-hour long Chinese silent film “The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple.” The movie was released in two parts, in 1928 and 1931. One can only imagine there was not all that much to watch at the time in China, but I’m just guessing. There is a bunch of European films ranging from 25 to 5 hours or so.

Length isn’t always a bad thing. Many of the greatest movies made were long. In fact, there was often an intermission between the two parts.

The movie musicals even had an overture at the start. “Gone With the Wind” is over three hours long. So is “Lawrence of Arabia.” Running just under three hours are “The Sound of Music” and “West Side Story.”

Of similar length are “Dances with Wolves” and “Saving Private Ryan.” Of most recent vintage, “The Dark Knight” clocked in at two and a half hours. The movie with the highest all-time gross, it has to be noted, is 1997’s “Titanic,” which ran just over three hours.

Of course, length is never an automatic sign of a good film. Kevin Costner’s “The Postman” ran over three hours long and even if “Waterworld” was much shorter, it sure felt longer. Wolfgang Petersen’s “Troy” is almost three hours long–I mean, it is about the
Iliad. But when it’s three hours that deviates ridiculously from the Iliad (how the heck does Agamemnon die in Troy? How do we go from there to Medea? Is he resurrected as a Greek zombie?), that has to be considered a bit excessive.

For all the people who complained about the length of “The Matrix Reloaded” (two hours plus) and “The Matrix Revolutions” (almost the same), consider that most of that time was taken up with big machines going klank, people going whoa and cars going crunch. Besides, I actually like all three Matrix movies (then again, I might be the only fan of Keanu Reeves’ earlier steampunk joint, the universally reviled “Johnny Mnemonic”).

What it boils down to ultimately is your enjoyment will of course vary on your taste. Maybe it is time to go back to the grand three hour movie, with the intermission in between. Maybe it really did make movies a true night out, an event. I would argue in fact that people feel much better about long movies than short ones–you surely won’t feel shortchanged for an eight-hour movie if you pay the same as for the hour-and-a-half variety.

I just like having the choice, so I hope “Melancholia” is eventually shown in theaters here, no matter how few viewers there are, once it passes MTRCB rating, of course.

After all, we should count ourselves lucky. Wikipedia says that the 2006 German experimental film “Matrjoschka” which ran 95 hours long.

Whoa indeed.

For more about Lav Diaz and his film “Melancholia,” check out the October 12 issue of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine.