119 8 Evolution of a Filipino Family and/as Non-cinema William Brown Towards the end of Ebolusyon ng isang pamilyang Pilipino/Evolution of a Filipino Family (Lav Diaz, Philippines, 2004), we see a railway track surrounded by countryside as a train hurtles from the background and towards the camera. The train then passes the camera and exits frame left, revealing once again the Philippine landscape beyond. The shot perhaps inevitably recalls one of the earliest flms, L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat/The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station (Auguste and Louis Lumière, France, 1896), in which a train similarly approaches the camera, before bearing slightly to the left of the frame, stopping and emptying itself of its passengers. However, while the reference seems unmistakable (to those familiar with the Lumière flm), there are important diferences between the two shots. The Lumière flm, for example, takes place at a station, while the Diaz flm is in the middle of the countryside. In L’arrivée … the train comes to a halt, while in Evolution … the train continues. Furthermore, as the train continues, we see walking along the railway tracks beyond/behind it Raynaldo (Elryan de Vera), one of the flm’s main protagonists who at this point in the proceedings is crossing the country by foot in order to reach the grave of his dead mother, Hilda (Marife Necesito). The Lumière shot lasts roughly one minute, while the Diaz shot lasts more than twice that long; the train itself takes only ffteen seconds to pass the camera, while we then see Raynaldo walking along the tracks for nigh two minutes. These diferences provide us with much to analyse. For, if the Lumière flm suggests the arrival of modernity, both in the sense that it depicts the arrival of a machine as modern as the train and in the sense that the flm declares the arrival of a medium as modern as the cinema, the failure of the train to stop in the Diaz flm suggests a kind of bypassing of modernity. The modern era might bring with it high technology, but Diaz wants to show us those ‘left behind’ by modernization, page 119 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 9876543211230_pi-202.indd 119 9876543211230_pi-202.indd 119 12-Apr-21 6:53:52 PM 12-Apr-21 6:53:52 PM