Review of Heneral Luna (2015) by Nico C — 21 Oct 2015

HENERAL LUNA: BAYAN O SARILI?

A film review by Nico Raphael D. Chamen.

Heneral Luna is a rare gem in the Filipino film library. It's a historical film focusing on a person not many Filipinos today recognize: General Antonio Luna. This movie was directed by Jerrold Tarog, who was well-versed in the horror genre and not much else. This movie was not funded by a major entertainment company, classifying it as an indie (short for independent) film. Yet, this movie struck gold and became the highest grossing historical film in Philippine history. Why, you may ask? Well, this movie has blended the best parts of Filipino movies and the advantages of foreign ones to create this beautiful tragedy of General Luna's life. War, love, humor, tension, and most especially the burning heart of Luna is shown so unapologetically clear that you can't help but be rallied into his vision as well. It truly deserves to be shortlisted into the nominees for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, as I pray it would be, as it showcases the future of Filipino movies if they all strived for the best.

Heneral Luna starts off with the movie's statement that what we were about to see was not the complete truth. They glossed over some details and meshed fantasy into the reality in order to tell a better story. Then, we are shown Joven Hernando, a fictional character placed there for symbolic reasons, interviewing General Antonio Luna about his successes in the battles he's fought. As the film carries on, we see the chaos in the two battlefields Luna fights in: the war with the Americans, and the war between the Filipinos. As he and the faithful Filipinos stand beside him, fighting for freedom, shadows lurk in the government, making deals with the enemy in order to save themselves from financial torment. With the time ticking until the Americans completely take over, Luna is forced to take drastic measures in his battles to buy his nation time to send more men. He rallies up more men and devises an ingenious plan to cripple the Americans of their forces. However, the corruption in the government poisons the president, with the politicians convincing him that Luna was scheming to take his place. The reality was that Luna only wanted to give his country the freedom it deserved. The president, being threatened of his position, then tricks Luna into going to his brutal demise. The people Luna made enemies with assassinated him in a very shameful manner. Taking their darkness even further, they killed (or in one case, attempted to kill) his sergeants in similarly grotesque manners. In the end of the movie, the "key witnesses" to Luna's story express their involvement in Luna's life or in his death. Joven then states his observation, seeing the Philippines as an archipelago where injustice rules supreme.

What I like in Heneral Luna is that humanity is shown for what it is: full of faults. They show every side of Luna in a way that makes you understand the cause for his decisions, his beliefs. Even the rivals of Luna are explained as to why they did what they did. It doesn't mean that everyone was just in their every cause, but it makes us understand their actions, even if they knew nothing of the consequences that came after. Everyone was at fault in this movie. Another thing I liked was how they visualized the movie. The director breathed life into the stale historical genre by injecting his horror tropes into it. You feel the terror in the battles Luna fights in and the brutality in his death. Being an "independent" project, the movie was untainted for the most part in terms of the studio messing with the creative minds' vision. Some character traits and certain people may not have been in the real story, but all in all, the movie showed the message it wanted to convey perfectly, with an additional visual panache and crispness as the cherry on top. The last major thing I very much admired in the movie is how symbolic everything was made to be, from Joven symbolising the present generation, digging for the truth, to the condition of the Philippine flag throughout the movie, slowly degrading and finally burning to ashes, waiting to rise again. The parallels they showed in the movie were surprising, but they showed how history repeats itself, like Emilio Aguinaldo's alleged betrayal to both Andres Bonifacio and Luna, who were both his close allies and how both Jose Rizal and Luna died trying to save their country.

Although it was, on the whole, great, there were still some downers (which were still vastly outweighed by the pros, so don't worry). The movie is set back by some sequences which showed the limitations of independent Filipino films. But the most major disappointment isn't in the movie itself; it's in the audience. Many people of the newer generations never knew why Apolinario Mabini couldn't walk, and many of them came to see the movie to focus on the handsomeness of certain actors on screen. I do hope the intended message of the movie reached everyone, not the holding gaze of Paulo Avelino (no offense to him, though).

As a final remark, all Filipinos should watch this movie to be able to understand our history better, if not to support our local talents. God made us Filipinos for a reason, and that's not to rely on other nations to feed us with their poison, but it's for us to rely on Him who can truly transform this disunited nation. Heneral Luna is a great example of what would happen when corruption runs rampant in the country, causing good people wanting change to die in vain.