Images of war and the city
August 27, 2005 | 12:00am
The news has been a bore lately with nothing but stories on the current political mess in the country. Hello!
So what’s new? Well, the more engaging news has been the string of reportage on all the articles about the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the end of the war in the Pacific. Several of these stories focused on the atrocities of the Japanese and the destruction of Manila – with some graphic images thrown in for the benefit of a generation with little knowledge of the tumultuous events of the mid-20th. Then there was also the release of the war epic, The Great Raid.
We went to see the movie over the weekend (in premier bottomless-popcorn comfort at the Shangri-La Plaza cinemas). Yes, Cesar Montano, as guerilla captain Pajota, did a good job…especially since all the Hollywood actors phoned in their respective portrayals. That Franco guy should stick to playing Spidey’s nemesis (as the new Green Goblin in the next web-slinger movie) and Benjamin Bratt, who looks Filipino, just kept on posing and trying to look West Pointy with his pipe.
What interested me most was the production design. I wanted to see how well they could recreate the Philippines and wartime Manila. Well, this production passed with a grade of 2 (1 being perfect), which is not bad considering that most Hollywood films take little trouble portraying locations here authentically. The texture of Manila was wonderfully recreated…in a back lot in Shanghai. Why Shanghai, when Binondo still has corners of heritage buildings easily fixed-up for 1940s scenes? Apparently the producers thought that filming in the post-9/11 months in the Philippines was high-risk (the production was delayed in its release and was shot mostly three years ago).
The establishing shot of the Pasig River was good enough to recreate the muelles of Manila, though obviously (at least to urban historians) the river shown was too wide and the silhouette of the buildings had too many art deco structures compared to the mostly neo-classic buildings of the Pasig’s north bank. Pwede na.
What were wonderfully represented were the street scenes – probably of the Binondo/Sta. Cruz area, complete with Meralco tranvias. Shanghai was similar to Manila in having tram and narrow streets in the downtown area. I wanted to see whether vehicular traffic was on the left side as it was before the war but the scenes were mostly devoid of cars as was the reality of the time.
The scenes at Fort Santiago were a bit off. The entrance to the fort was from within Intramuros and not from the riverside as depicted. Also, I could not guess where that pylon, with a winged victory, in front of the entrance came from. Manila has only one such statue and it is on top of the Bonifacio monument in Caloocan. The fort’s interiors also show a smaller facility than is the reality. Pwede pa rin.
The hospital courtyard scene was a little off too. The PGH’s courtyards were arcaded and high walls were not the fashion till after the war for most compounds. That Connie Neilsen is sure tall! And the Filipina traitor should have been wearing a bayong with eye holes over her head. Finally, Manila was cool in January of 1945 but not cold enough for Neilsen to wear an overcoat when she was captured by the Japanese (but Shanghai weather, on the other hand, is rather nippy).
On to the other settings in the film – Lingayen where the Americans landed and Cabanatuan along with the POW camp itself. When the mission starts on day one we see Col. Mucci’s (Bratt) forces moving out at daybreak. Here’s where the filmmakers make the same mistake as their colleagues did with the ending scene of John Wayne’s Green Berets movie. The sun is seen rising on the horizon. Lingayen is facing west and the morning sun, of course, should be on the land side! (In Green Berets, Wayne walks into the sun setting over the ocean – the wrong side for Vietnam but correct for California where the film was shot.) The Great Raid was shot in Australia’s Gold Coast, which is on the eastern coast of Australia.
As the raiding force treks to the POW camp they pass through strange vegetation. The trees seem to be mostly of a single eucalyptus or paper bark (Melaleuca) species, which are not endemic to the Philippines (although we have a Eucalyptus deglupta from Mindanao). The sugar cane fields are correct since that was one of the cash crops in Nueva Ecija and Pangasinan. The Gold Coast is home to Australia’s sugar plantations (10 times more efficient in production because of mechanization and government support). By the way, the coconut trees in the landing sequence were added by computer so the movie notes report. Why again did they not just shoot in Lingayen? Some say that all the funny business Coppola had to suffer when shooting Apocalypse now, and Stone with Platoon, has given the Philippines a bad reputation as a film location.
The movie dragged a bit. It is long – over two hours, for the subject covered. The actual newsreel footage shown at the end of the movie of the rescued POWs and the film’s main American characters were quite interesting (and showed how much more character the real heroes had than the actors portraying them …again except Montano of course). It was an entertaining film nevertheless and my critique of it is not intended to diminish the accomplishments of those portrayed.
A week after the raid, the Americans entered Manila and the destruction of the city, with much loss of civilian life, ensued till March. I’ve featured that story before but nevertheless include images here of the destruction as a reminder of how military strategies can go as wrong as they can go right. The city could have been retaken with less collateral damage (some historians say that the Americans did not trust the Filipino guerilla scouts as much as Mucci and Prince did Pajota and proceeded somewhat blindly). The city was destroyed because of both American artillery as well as Japanese demolition.
We can never get pre-war Manila back yet the irony of it all is that we continue destroying heritage architecture from that era mindlessly today. Maybe we can convince some Hollywood production to shoot a period piece here. With a budget of $200,000 million (the average cost of a US film), that’s over a billion pesos that can go partly to rebuilding whole sections of historical Manila. Now that’s a great idea!
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