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'Heremias is a wandering peddler whose fateful decision to separate from his fellow salesmen leads him to an abandoned house deep in the jungle and entanglement with the criminals and venal authorities of the nearby village. The protagonist's name is derived from Jeremiah, the Biblical prophet who declaimed the corruption in Jerusalem in a vain attempt to prevent its destruction. The modern-day decadence that Heremias confronts is as vividly depicted as his attempt to right the wrongs he can and to atone for the rest. One of the most meditative of Lav Diaz's epics, the ever-lucid black-and-white cinematography serves to highlight the quasi-parable aspect of Heremias' simple but sad story.' Harvard Film Archive