‘Where The Night Stands Still’ review: Modest Filipino domestic helper drama is set in rural Italy

Dir/scr. Liryc Dela Cruz. Italy/Philippines 2025. 75mins

The tensions of exile and servitude are performed out in deceptively low-key style in The place The Night time Stands Nonetheless, an Italy-set Tagalog-language three-hander from Filipino director Liryc Dela Cruz. Featured in Berlinale’s Views part, the movie is finely acted, elegantly executed and seemingly undemonstrative, however its thematic density will go away audiences musing after a resonant open ending. Brevity and modest scale will make for restricted publicity, however area of interest shops ought to take to this showcase for a rising directorial expertise.

Finely acted, elegantly executed and seemingly undemonstrative

The place The Night time Stands Nonetheless is the primary full-length fiction from Dela Cruz, famous as a gallery artist in addition to a film-maker, and a someday affiliate of Filipino  auteur Lav Diaz. There are echoes of Diaz right here, not least within the lengthy takes and use of mounted digicam, in addition to in Dela Cruz’s personal high-contrast black and white pictures. However this very succinct piece has its personal really feel and thematics – and a dramatic language with greater than a contact of Chekhov, in its musing on an outdated order that’s passing whereas its tainted legacy stays. 

The movie begins with a close-up of a white-haired lady, Lilia (Tess Magallanes), shadows flickering over her face to the accompaniment of one thing that may be the wind, distant industrial noise, or maybe a psychological state manifested as sound. We see Lilia shifting across the giant home the place she lives in rural Italy, first kneeling at a makeshift shrine in her bed room providing prayers for her late employer Signora Patrizia; then strolling within the giant backyard, fastidiously sweeping leaves from a passageway (the time is seemingly a sunny early autumn) and cleansing a staircase. Lilia now owns the property, bequeathed to her by Patrizia, her employer of 35 years who died in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. Lilia nonetheless nonetheless considers herself duty-bound to maintain the home as Patrizia would have wished – suggesting that her state of servitude has solely been prolonged indefinitely. 

Finally Lilia, who’s in her 60s, is visited by youthful siblings Rosa (Jenny Llanto Caringal) and Manny (Benjamin Vasques Barcellano Jr). Within the initially leisurely discussions that observe their arrival – together with a 10-minute single-take scene over an al fresco lunch – the three speak concerning the previous, Lilia’s current life alone, their shared expertise of exile (all three left the Philippines to work in Italy) and the doable future. Rosa and Manny are mightily impressed by the great fortune of their ‘Ate’ (large sister) however, it emerges, considerably resentful too – notably Manny, whose employment historical past has lately been rocky. 

The drama performs out in a muted, strictly realist register, however Dela Cruz additionally locations stylistic touches that introduce notes of dream-like ambivalence: notably, two photographs of unidentified lights glowing hazily at midnight, with unusual accretions of sound welling up within the background (Antonio Giannantonio’s elusive, textured sound design is a key component all through). 

Taking its personal slow-burning time to construct, the movie seems to be extra an prolonged sketch of character relations than a story per se (the three actors, along with Sheryl Aluan, are credited with contributing to the story). It’s only on the very finish {that a} important occasion happens with startling abruptness – earlier than a wordless, markedly theatrical last shot ends the drama on an interrogative observe.

Dela Cruz’s personal black and pictures (he additionally acts as producer, editor and manufacturing designer) emphasises excessive distinction and cautious, generally shocking compositions – notably a semi-abstract shot from above, because the brooding Manny walks previous an odd, seemingly ceremonial circle of white stones. Closing with a dedication to the worldwide multitude of home staff from the Philippines, the movie is knowledgeable by the legacy of colonialism. However Dela Cruz’s choice to dramatise the theme in such a low-key, even visually lyrical style makes it all of the extra troubling for the understated tremors of unease it creates.