
The lives of three people take a turn when one of them commits a crime: Joaquin is failing miserably at providing for his family. When his loan-shark Magda gets murdered, the crime is pinned on him. Misery and solitude transform him in prison. Left to fend for the family after a serious leg injury, his wife Eliza pours all of her strength to battling with despair and eking out a living for their two children. The real perpetrator, Fabian, a hothead student who holds forth on ... (Full plot summary below)
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The lives of three people take a turn when one of them commits a crime: Joaquin is failing miserably at providing for his family. When his loan-shark Magda gets murdered, the crime is pinned on him. Misery and solitude transform him in prison. Left to fend for the family after a serious leg injury, his wife Eliza pours all of her strength to battling with despair and eking out a living for their two children. The real perpetrator, Fabian, a hothead student who holds forth on the subject of atheism and anarchism to his long-suffering friends roams free. His disillusionment with his country-its history of revolutions marred by betrayal and crimes unpunished-drives him to the edge of sanity.
Leave your thoughts about Norte, the End of History.
| GuardianPeter BradshawThis is a classical tragedy of the modern Philippines and of global capitalism, a story of violence, hate, fear and love spread out on a colossal panorama which extends its reach into the realms of the spiritual and the supernatural. |
| Daily Telegraph (UK)Tim RobeyIt's bristling with plot and ideas. The story sprawls, but it also rivets. |
| Irish TimesTara BradyAs is often the case with three-hour-plus projects, a sense of Stockholm Syndrome kicks in, leaving us happy to roll along with real-time rhythms of meals and walks and chores. |
| Boston GlobePeter KeoughSome might find the dual conclusions too blunt in their irony, but “Norte” does not try to be consoling. Crazy as Fabian’s ideas seem, they might be the ones that prevail. |
| MUBIDavid PhelpsDiaz's embrace of a mobile camera and exploitation stories suggests that "contemplative" cinema has probably never really been a reproof to Hollywood spectacle and suspense, so much as it's been an extension of spectacle by other means. |
| The Stranger (Seattle, WA)Charles MudedeIt's a monumental achievement: a four-hour film you wish could be longer. |
| Time OutDavid FearNovelistic is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days, but Diaz’s film more than earns the adjective, and you’d have to go back to Edward Yang’s "Yi Yi" to find another movie that approaches a marathon-length running time yet still makes you wish it were twice as long. |
| MiamiArtZineRuben RosarioThis is the work of a filmmaker blessed with the gift of chronicling the unbearable heaviness of being. He basks in the redemptive glow of thematic ambition. |
| Antagony & EcstasyTim BraytonFour hours of academic moralising could be a lot more opaque than this crafty, organic film presents them as being. |
| Empire MagazineDavid ParkinsonFilipino maven Diaz delivers a bravura, literary human drama that does justice to its great source material. |