'Amigo': A beautiful film on forgotten war between the Philippines & America

The funniest thing was when at the close of the Spanish-American War the United States paid poor decrepit old Spain $20,000,000 for the Philippines… There were the Filipinos fighting like blazes for their liberty. Spain would not hear to it. The United States stepped in, and after they had licked the enemy to a standstill, instead of freeing the Filipinos they paid that enormous amount for an island which is of no earthly account to us; just wanted to be like the aristocratic countries of Europe which have possessions in foreign waters. The United States wanted to be in the swim, and it, too, had to branch out, like an American heiress buying a Duke or an Earl. Sounds well, but that’s all.  — Mark Twain interview, Baltimore Sun, May 10, 1907 

This writer enjoyed watching the “takip silim” Philippine premiere of the American film Amigo directed and written by US independent filmmaker John Sayles last June 28 at TriNoma mall in Quezon City. Thanks to Sayles also for gifting me with an autographed copy of his 955-page novel A Moment in the Sun, from which he got inspiration for this film.

Among the numerous guests at the movie premiere were the late Carlos P. Romulo’s American widow Beth Day Romulo and lots of history scholars. A colorful exhibit of film costumes by Gino Gonzales titled “Veiled Memories of a Forgotten Past” is still on view from June 28 to July 5 at TriNoma cinema lobby.

Amigo is neither blindly pro-American nor shrilly anti-American. It’s a beautiful well-crafted film with good drama, deft humor, subtle irony and fine cinematography. It fairly and unemotionally presents both sides — the American and Filipino side — of a long-forgotten and ugly war between the Philippines and America over a century ago.

Is an unemotional review of unvarnished Philippine history and of US involvement here in our isles, such as this movie Amigo depicts, a good way to build realistic bilateral relations between us and our former colonizer based on equality, realpolitik and mutual benefits?

Guerrillas sneak up on US troops.

The almost timeless rural landscape of Philippine barrio life — the beautiful setting for an ugly war — was shot by Sayles in Barangay Toril in the Maribojoc municipality of Bohol province.

Amigo is a cinematic pleasure, from period costumes circa 1900, age-old rice-planting and harvesting rites, Catholic religiosity, admirable communal efforts to build a nipa hut for a local resident afflicted with then-incurable tuberculosis, the making of native wine called tuba, the colorful pastime of sabong or cock-fighting, to the “sacred as well as profane” custom of our annual fiestas or religious feasts for local patron saints.

Showing in selected SM, Robinsons and Ayala malls starting July 6 — around the same time as such Hollywood blockbusters as Transformers 3D, Harry Potter Part 7 and local flick Temptation Island hit cinemas — Amigo showcases good solid acting by Joel Torre as the well-intentioned yet conflicted chief Rafael Dacanay of the occupied village of San Isidro in northern Luzon; Rio Locsin as the pious and longsuffering wife of the village chief; Garret Dillahunt as the civilized Lt. Compton who is a pacifist at heart; and Oscar-winning actor Chris Cooper as American war freak Colonel Hardacre who is uncompromising in using brutal force to crush the Filipino rebels.

Cooperating with american invaders: treason or just survival?

The petty bourgeoisie landlord and village chief Rafael Dacanay is torn between  paternalistic duty to keep his village safe and pressures to obey the increasingly difficult dictates of the brash new colonizers. Ominously, the ragtag rebels in the hills and even his own runaway son already suspect him of having become a “collaborator” with the new oppressors.

Director Sayles — who, according to former 2010 presidential candidate Nic Perlas, has read over 100 books on the Philippine-American War — revealed that the turmoil faced by the village chief in his film was a real-life dilemma confronted by various Filipino cabezas of that bloody era.

Indeed, not a few of the Filipino elite ilustrados of the Philippine revolution against Spain quickly defected, one by one, to the new colonizers and even assisted in thwarting Filipino rebels like General Macario Sakay. How do we assess their historic roles?

San Isidro under US occupation in Amigo

Other characters depicted in Amigo include the Tagalog-speaking and devious Spanish Catholic friar (played by Tony nominee Yul Vasquez) who was the parish priest of the area before the revolution against Spain had him and some Spanish soldiers locked up; also the ill-equipped but persistent Filipino rebels in the hills — labeled “landrones” or “bandits” by the Americans and led by Rafael Dacanay’s former seminarian brother Simon (Ronnie Lazaro).

Outsiders to the barrio in the film were the energetic Cantonese-speaking Chinese coolies brought in by the Americans to construct the basic communication and other public works facilities; but nowhere, I noticed, was any Hokkien-speaking local Chinese trader or storekeeper depicted in the film. How could barrio life be complete without the hardworking and resilient Chinese storekeeper of the tienda, equivalent to Dr. Jose Rizal’s Quiroga in Noli Me Tangere?

Philippines prepared for self-rule as us was in its 1776 revolution

I highly recommend this well-made, thought-provoking and interesting film, not only for its entertainment value, but in order for us to better understand and continue exploring what was once called the Philippine-American War from 1899 to 1902. Filmmaker Sayles told this writer that Filipino armed resistance to the US invasion, especially with numerous Moro rebellions in Mindanao, actually continued up to 1914.

With tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands in military as well as civilian deaths, the Philippine-American War was considered by historians as a precursor to America’s 20th century Vietnam War, the later Iraq invasion of George W. Bush and even the now controversial USA-led NATO military attacks in the Libyan Civil War.

Anti-guerrilla tactics of the Phil-Am War — such as hamletting, water cure tortures and merciless scorched-earth policies — were depicted in Amigo; these controversial strategies were also to be deployed half a century later by US troops in the ‘60s-‘70s Vietnam War with US military deployment rising to as many as 536,100 soldiers.  

Amigo will be released in the US in August. It has deservedly garnered 10 Urian Awards nominations from the Philippine Film Critics Association, for 2011 Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Musical Score, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Production Design.

True, American colonial occupation of the Philippines was more progressive than that of 333 years of Spanish colonial misrule; however, this writer still believes that colonialism in all forms is morally wrong and wars of colonial conquest are unjustifiable.

When I asked Sayles if his own country was right in claiming that the Philippines in 1899 “was not yet prepared for self-rule,” he readily replied: “If I were alive then, I would have been against the US invasion. If we were true to our democratic principles, we should have helped the Philippines to fight Spain. I believe it was a combination of greed and racism. Filipinos in 1899 were as prepared for self-rule as the Americans were in 1776 or the Vietnamese were in their 1960s revolution. If we had not invaded the Philippines, Filipinos then would have been like Mexico on the rocky road, but their problems in Mexico after independence didn’t mean the US had the right to take over Mexico.”

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