Wake (Subic)

(John Gianvito, US 2015, 277 min., DCP, Tagalog w/subtitles)

First begun in 2006, Wake (Subic) completes the documentary diptych For Example, the Philippines, the first part of which, Vapor Trail (Clark), was released in 2010. Collectively, this nine-hour essay explores circumstances of toxic contamination around the former US military bases in the Philippines as the locus for a meditation on historical amnesia, colonial privilege, and the consequences of unchecked militarism. Interweaving both cinema verité and interview footage of Filipino victims and their families, environmental spokespersons, and community activists, along with early photographic material pertaining to the Philippine-American War, partisan songs, historical texts, and landscape photography, both films are an attempt to construct a work capable of rendering some measure of this human and environmental tragedy and the complexities of its remedy.