What the Luna film taught me

First, a confession: I learned more about Philippine history in two hours inside the theater than I did in one semester inside the classroom.

We finally found the time to watch Heneral Luna at Cinema 3 of Gateway Mall in Quezon City last Sunday and we were not at all surprised why “all seats were taken” (ask Tempo columnist Robert Roque who was there with his family) because more and more people (50 percent discount for students, two of them with us) have been trooping to the theaters, thanks to the glowing reviews (and word-of-mouth endorsements) the movie has been reaping.

In fact, Luna opened in only a number of theaters on Sept. 9 and it’s now drawing big crowds in more than 100 theaters, hooray! Now we know why the movie has been selected as “official submission” to the Best Foreign Language Film category of next year’s Oscars. I don’t quite agree with the opinion of some friends that the 5,000 voting Academy members will frown on Luna because, according to my friends, it is  “anti-American,” set as it is during the Philippine-American War in the 1890s when Luna and his trusted men led a Philippine Revolutionary Army.

But director Gil Portes, who has had three films entered also as “official submission” in the same Oscar category, doesn’t think so because, he said, “most of the Academy members are Jewish.” Let’s keep our fingers crossed for Luna which, if you ask me (with the expected hundreds of other “official submissions” from other countries unseen), deserves a serious attention from some 400 Academy members who vote for the Foreign Film category.

The two students with us were asking if Gen. Antonio Luna was as temperamental, threatening to kill anybody who disobeyed him, as John Arcilla portrays him. Not good in history (whether World, American or Philippine), I told them that I presumed Gen. Luna was and I was discovering it from the movie. I didn’t see John from start to finish. He got under the Luna’s skin so effectively that it was Luna that I saw on the screen from our third-row seats (the only ones unavailable).

Although admittedly older than Luna was (heard that John Lloyd Cruz was the first choice but negotiations failed), John fleshes out the character with impunity, consistently brash, aggressive and impulsive until the very end when he is killed in a manner more bloody and more brutal than the slow-motion killing of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde.

We learned that, after Luna was killed, the Americans acknowledged him as “a worthy adversary,” laughing at how “they had killed the only real general (the Philippine Revolution) had.”

We loved the sense of humor of Jerrold Tarog who not only co-wrote the screenplay (with E.A. Rocha and Henry Hunt Francia) and directed the movie but also acted as the editor (fantastic editing!). Tarog gave the movie touches of comedy in an incidental manner, such as when in the fierce battle scene Luna reminds his men to hit the enemies bull’s-eye “kasi mahal ang bala.” Archie Alemania as Capt. Eduardo Rusca provides the light moments with his devil-may-care portrayal.

Again, the students with us were asking if Mon Confiado looks exactly like Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo and I said, “He’s perfect for the role.” Did Aguinaldo really do what he did to Andres Bonifacio and Gen. Antonio Luna according to Philippine history books? It’s all over the Luna movie, so I told them to pay close attention.

Unforgettable is the confrontation scene between John and Nonie Buencamino (as Felipe Buencamino) shot in close-up so extreme that you could see the two men’s lips quivering and the pores on their faces.

There’s a disclaimer at the start of the movie that it’s fiction based on facts. No matter. It’s history in living color, made more compelling by the dynamic camera work. The camera didn’t just stand there, it explores and it probes, and moves around making the audience not just spectators but participants. It’s an experience in Sining Saysay, as the title of a UP exhibit puts it, meaning learning not by reading but via visual experience.

Watching Luna, I understood what John said in an interview with The STAR: “I love history since I was a school boy. I’m critical about our history because I just don’t believe what I read. I am aware that the writers of our history books were kind of obsolete na. The writers of our history books were actually the Americans, so they wouldn’t put themselves naman in the middle of controversy, they would rather put the Filipinos in a bad light. So I read the writings of Renato Constantino and Ambeth Ocampo, mas naniniwala ako siempre sa point of view ng Filipino writers kaysa sa point of view ng colonizers.”

Now I know why the company was named Artikulo Uno. It’s based on Luna’s “infamous” Article One stating, as per the movie’s production notes, “that all who refuse to follow his orders shall be executed without the benefit of a trial in a military court.” After the screening, the audience gave the movie a resounding applause.

Tarog said that he planned to do a trilogy, starting with Heneral Luna.

In the mid-credits scene at the end of Luna, Paulo Avelino as Gen. Gregorio del Pilar is shown gathering Luna’s remaining men and tells his aides to choose 60 of them.

Your and my guess may be right what the next part of Tarog’s planned trilogy is.

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