When The Waves Are Gone
A FILM BY Lav Diaz
PRODUCTION GRANT - FALL 2019
30 years ago, two best friends rob a bank. One goes to prison other returns to their home island with the money and becomes it’s tyrant ruler. For over 30 years, he keeps his friend locked up in prison with his influence. One day, during the monsoon storm season, the prisoner is set free after fulfilling his duties as a prison hit man.
He leaves the prison under the cover of night, on a little boat, through the dark Pacific ocean’s angry waves to his home island on the eastern tip of the Philippines.
Once home, he recognizes no one and no one recognizes him.
By day he takes shelter in a boarded up house plotting revenge. By night he sets out, slowly killing the people around his best friend. He falls in love with a femme fatale who works in a cheap cabaret bar of whom is also his best friend’s mistress.
As the storm season ends, the town is peaceful and calm. He finally goes out into the sun for the first time and reveals himself to his best friend. He kills him and his family. In a haze of madness, he realizes he's freed his friend of his guilt, revenge has not returned his lost youth and the island is empty.
Wounded, he goes to the shore and let's the waves take his body out to sea.