Filipino drama “A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” will be shown at noon Saturday at IU Cinema.
All eight hours and five minutes of it.
The film, with a run time of 485 minutes, is a black-and-white epic set against the backdrop of the 1896 Philippine Revolution against Spain. The movie is a part of the slow cinema movement, a genre of art movie placing more emphasis on long takes than on a cohesive narrative.
The film is composed of different, interconnected narratives that explore history, literature and mythology.
The film’s director, Lav Diaz, is notable for making several of the longest narrative films ever made. In addition to “A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery,” Diaz also directed the almost 10-hour-long “Evolution of a Filipino Family."
The screening is part of IU Cinema’s "Beyond Epic" series, a collection of films notable for their length. Other films in the series include the nine-hour and 34-minute-long Japanese wartime epic “The Human Condition” and the seven hour and 11-minute-long 1968 Soviet war drama “War and Peace.”
As with the other films in the series, Saturday’s screening will feature a 45-minute intermission around four hours into the film. Food trucks will be available outside of IU Cinema from 4 p.m. until 4:45 p.m.
