Heremias: Book One – The Legend of the Lizard Princess (also Unang Aklat: Ang Alamat ng Prinsesang Bayawak) is a 2006 Filipino crime drama film written and directed by Lav Diaz.
It stars Ronnie Lazaro and Sid Lucero, alongside a cow named Jordan.
[1] The 8-hour digital film (519 minutes) [2] was produced by Celso De Guzman, with principal cinematography by Tamara Benitez, and was shot in Pililla, Rizal, Luzon.
The film is "the story of a farmer who makes a pact with God to save a girl from rape.
"[3] Heremias is a poor farmer who travels with a group of salesmen who sell appliances to people from their wagons.
Heremias works with these salesmen in making their sales, but grows dissatisfied with the monotonous life that comes with this job.
The other salesmen attempt persuading him to come back, but they eventually realize that he wishes to travel on his own.
Heremias then continues traveling with his cow and then finds a place to stay for the night.
The next day, Heremias wakes up, only to find that his cow has been stolen and his cart was burned the other night by the two men.
After this, Chief Fredo tells Heremias that it is best he leave the barrio and go someplace else where it is safe.
They then become completely exhausted by the end of the trip—after this, the hooligans then reveal their plan to rape a young girl named Helena and then throw her in the river.
Querubin warns him that if he were to tell anyone about what happened, he would be killed, since Congressman Samson is a powerful man.
[2] Discussing Heremias, a reviewer was impressed by the work of Tamara Benitez, calling her "so young and so talented".
[5] Hayley Scanlon summarized: "With long sections playing out in near real time, extreme long distance shots often static in nature, and black and white photography captured on low res digital video which makes it almost impossible to detect emotional subtlety in the performances of its cast, Heremias is a challenging prospect yet an oddly hypnotic, ultimately moving one.