ZingDash

Diaz displays a remarkable skill with editing hours of footage about a complex issue into a tight piece of non-fiction filmmaking that makes its point often merely by bearing witness to history being made in the Philippines. She charts the rise of Rodrigo Duterte’s campaign of violent intimidation, making it clear how he achieved power by promising vengeance, turning the streets of Manila into a bloody nightmare by empowering his people to murder anyone involved in the drug trade. Like so many dictators, he rose to power on a platform of fear—only he could protect the innocent citizens of his country from the criminals overtaking it. At the beginning, people like Maria Ressa and her organization Rappler were there to speak truth to power, posting investigative reports about the impact of Duterte’s regime and even interviewing the world leader.

From the beginning of “A Thousand Cuts,” Diaz and her team present a firm grasp on all of the issues at play in this complex situation, never dumbing it down for easy consumption but also never letting it get away from them. The filmmaking team was allowed remarkable access to elements of the Duterte administration, including underlings who helped drive his social media campaigns, the blindingly loyal ones designed to elevate him and the threatening, vile ones that targeted his enemies. And we also spend time with future politicians enabled by Duterte’s rhetoric, including a police chief who tries to use the drug war to further his career and a social media darling who tries to turn Insta-fame into actual political power. Diaz never bangs this drum too loudly, but there’s a disturbing reminder that politicians like Duterte don’t exist in a vacuum—they enable not only their underlings who have similar beliefs but empower anyone to use questionable tactics to get ahead.

Through it all, “A Thousand Cuts” keeps returning to Ressa, who remarkably holds out hope through all of it, even as Duterte has her arrested and charged. There’s so much tension in Duterte’s assault on journalism, including death threats via social media, that “A Thousand Cuts” plays out like a thriller in terms of what might happen to Ressa next. Her life is literally in jeopardy, and I kept worrying that the inevitable extreme of dynamics in which the press is turned into the enemy would lead to a tragedy. Diaz captures brief glimpses of concern and doubt on Ressa’s face, but it’s not an exaggeration to say she’s an inspiration. She keeps fighting against an increasingly rising tide, and that fight is far from over—the film, which premiered at Sundance, contains a coda from a recent Ressa ruling in June 2020. There’s an immediate tension here that’s reminiscent of “Citizenfour” in terms of what’s at stake. 

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