I HAD a chance to watch the movie Heneral Luna with my wife and family members and I was truly impressed with the crowd that it pulled. The lines at SM BF on Sukat Road were long and we couldn’t get seats for the mid-afternoon screening. We had to buy tickets for the next screening three hours later and had to kill time waiting for it. We also had to make do with seats so close to the screen, it was practically like watching a show on a big screen TV with our faces a few inches from the set.
But I enjoyed every minute of the movie, the discomfort was well worth it. In fact, I enjoyed it so much, I wouldn’t mind watching it again, although I would prefer better seating.
I found the film very entertaining. It reminded me of the dozens of films I wrote for Jun Aristorenas, Tony Ferrer and Ramon Revilla decades ago. I realize, that sounds almost blasphemous, talking about Heneral Luna in the same breath as Harabas, Agent X-44 and Nardong Putik. I don’t mean any disrespect. It’s just that, as an old hand in movie making, I couldn’t help noting how the makers of Luna applied familiar cinematic touches that my late director friend, Tony Santos, referred to as “Approved kwela.”
Considering how the audience loved the irreverent depiction of familiar historical figures and the overdose of invectives spit out by the Luna character I’m not surprised that Donald Trump is leading in the GOP presidential derby and Davao’s Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has endeared himself to many Filipino voters looking for someone to elevate to the presidency. The present generation has become so jaded that one needs to use the shock tactics of Trump and Duterte or Tony Santos’ approved kwela techniques to gain attention
Heneral Luna does that with dialogues and scenes intended to elicit spontaneous laughter or jolt the moviegoers in their seats (“Puñeta” has the same recall potential as Ramon Revilla’s “Bwakang ina” in Nardong Putik). And then, there’s the sequence where Luna dragged a Kawit Katipunero captain before his troops by the poor fellow’s balls. The audience loved that. I did too. Who cares about authenticity? And to rub it in, the officer was earlier shown in bed with a woman – as in, “How could he do that while fellow Katipuneros were being slaughtered?Ummmm. Buti nga!
Having said that, I would like to caution the serious students of motion picture art or of history to lower their expectations of the film because they could be in for some disappointment. I would suggest that, whatever their filmic or academic background, they should just go watchHeneral Luna for its entertainment value. I guarantee that they will enjoy it as I did.
I also hope that the producers don’t feel too discouraged if they don’t win any awards at the Oscars where, I understand, they plan to enter the film. But, I’m hoping I’m wrong. Maybe it will gain some critical acclaim for the novelty of a movie where Americans are presented as the bad guys.
I feel like an odd man out writing like this about a piece of creative work that a lot of people I know have been heaping with glowing praise. And let me tell you, these are folks who don’t normally watch Filipino movies and who have genuinely good tastes.
Like me, I’m sure they were prepared to take a positive attitude towards a film that had enjoyed a lot of good reviews in social media (pretty much like perceiving Grace Poe as the great possibility for the Philippine presidency and Leni Robredo for the vice-presidency because of all the positive press).
Unlike them, however, I can’t watch a movie without subsequently asking myself if it was really well-made or if I enjoyed it because I wanted a no-brainer to relax with. To be frank, I regard Heneral Luna as a no-brainer – but, in that context, it is a thoroughly enjoyable and well-made one, especially with the costumes and production design. .
From a more serious perspective, the character of Antonio Luna could have used more in-depth development. There was an attempt to do that by means of soliloquys (a-la Hamlet’s “To be or not to be”) as well as in the sequence where Luna’s mother asked him to close his eyes and recall his blissful childhood with his brother Juan. I can almost see the director and the screenplay writers discussing the need for such a scene “in order to depict the complex character of the hero and soften his harsh, explosive persona.”
But that technique reminded me more of the dream sequences that old-time Tagalog movie makers employed to provide relief from too muchbakbakan and patayan.
There was an opportunity for the writers to have portrayed with more depth Los Indios Bravos in Europe – Jose Rizal and the Luna brothers among them – as a background for the Filipino intelligentsia’s incipient struggle for freedom. This could have been a better setting to explain the motivations behind Antonio Luna’s characterization. But then, even Vivencio Jose, the author of the book, The Rise and Fall of Antonio Luna, on which the movie was based, apparently failed to do that, too. According to a scholarly review of the book, “its failure to situate Luna within the organized nationalist activity of Filipino activists in Europe makes Luna’s activities during this period seem rather unconnected and gives little idea of the progressive evolution of his thought.”
This probably left the screenplay writers with no other option but to depict Luna’s mercurial character and military genius in the most obvious manner – like commandeering a train and riding straight into the enemy lines on horseback.
Having said that, it makes me wonder why Emilio Aguinaldo was shown as such an impotent figurehead caught in the midst of the wrangling and the screaming of Philippine history’s most prominent personalities. Was this also the way Aguinaldo was depicted in Jose’s book? I wonder.
One can hardly believe that this was the same revolutionary leader who declared Philippine independence in Kawit, Cavite on June 12, 1898. I’m no big fan of DOTC Secretary Joseph Emilio Aguinaldo Abaya, but I can appreciate his discomfort with the cinematic treatment of his great grandfather’s role in Philippine history.
Come to think of it, I’m wondering what prompted the producers to make Heneral Luna. Was it intended as an art film (what movie scribes refer to as “pang-award)? Or did they produce it for its box-office potential because of the way the source material overturned the cookie-cutter versions of Philippine history and exposed our heroes as having feet of clay? If it was for the last reason, they have apparently succeeded. The movie is a bona fide box-office hit.
The opening titles did acknowledge that the producers had blended historical facts with cinematic fiction. About that aspect, historian Ambeth Ocampo had this to say in his newspaper column: “Everyone who comes out of Heneral Luna blames Aguinaldo—an oversimplification because history is more complex than our textbooks make it out to be. History is not about memorizing ‘facts’ or reacting emotionally, but being critical of facts and narratives. Aguinaldo is a soft target in a complex story where there are other villains. Some of the villains are not people but flaws in human nature and Philippine society.”
Oversimplification may be the best way to describe Heneral Luna as a portrayal of history and of historical figures. Even the way the dialogue was delivered by such characters as Gen. Arthur MacArthur and by John Arcilla’s Luna was much like a zarzuela – like hitting you on the head with a hammer, in a case you didn’t get the point.
And in the scene where Luna was killed, the director really went all out to squeeze it for all its gory potentials. Steve Reeves as Superman couldn’t have remained standing that long from all the bullets pumped into Luna at close range, not to mention being hacked with bolos.
Eventually Luna died, of course. And this was where you could almost hear someone in the audience moan, “Sayang, namatay ang bida.” ([email protected])
