‘Makikiraan Po (Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors)’ Review: Lav Diaz and Isabel Sandoval Team Up for a Mournful, Modest Anti-Colonial Drama

Clocking in at a mere 151 minutes, Lav Diaz 's latest opus "Makikiraan Po (Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors)" is his shortest feature in 24 years — no sweat for hardcore fans of the Filipino auteur's durational cinema. It's likely to interest his eager detractors, given its relative digestibility. More modestly scaled than last year's " Magellan ," Diaz's swift return to his signature noirish image-making is, like his last film, a story of colonial conquest realized through religious conversion. That's always great fodder for a filmmaker with a long-term, unbridled relationship with history, what we might as well describe as "Diazian." Since his nine-hour epic "Death in the Land of Encantos" in 2007, this is the Golden Lion-winning director's ninth film at the Venice Film Festival, which should have scored a competition berth for its sheer vision alone.