By Noel Vera
Video
Heneral Luna
Directed by Jerrold Tarog
Jerrold Tarog’s Heneral Luna caps, if you like, the decades-plus quest of Filipino filmmakers to retell the Philippine Revolution and its direct aftermath, the Philippine-American War, in two distinct styles, from the more traditional Gone With the Wind-type epic storytelling (Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s Jose Rizal, Mark Meily’s El Presidente) to more eclectic independent efforts (Raymond Red’s extended poems Bayani [Hero] and Sakay; Tikoy Aguiluz’s cinema-verite Rizal sa Dapitan [Rizal in Dapitan]); Mike de Leon’s Magritte-ish essay film Bayaning Third World (Third World Hero); Mario O’Hara’s speculative fantasy Sisa, and Dreyer-like courtroom drama Ang Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio (The Trial of Andres Bonifacio).
Tarog’s film falls somewhere between, covering the last year or so of the life of General Antonio Luna (John Arcilla) while touching on that life’s highlights: the Battle of Santo Tomas, where Luna charged the enemy and was shot off his horse; the Battle of Calumpit, where he waged a heated word war with the defiant General Tomas Mascardo (Lorenz Martinez); and the various political skirmishes Luna was forced to fight to present his strategies to his respected — if suspiciously distant — commander, President Emilio Aguinaldo (Mon Confiado).
Tarog acquits himself in the battles well enough, his stated model (not to mention the source of a few of his camera moves) being the trench warfare in Kubrick’s Paths of Glory — though his most memorable moment is inspired by D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, where Luna charges the entire American army all by himself, and his soldiers are forced to attack from sheer shock of surprise (plus the need to keep their superior officer from getting thoroughly killed). It’s the infighting, however, that brings out the cross-cutter in Tarog (who started out as composer, production designer and editor before trying his hand at directing) — in a series of intensely delivered monologues spliced into each other at an accelerating pace, Tarog depicts the rancorous exchange between Luna and Mascardo; when Felipe Buencamino (Nonie Buencamino) starts a whispering campaign against Luna in Aguinaldo’s ear, Tarog crisscrosses Buencamino’s scenes with Luna alone in his room playing a moody guitar; the melody darkens as the implications of Buencamino’s insinuations darken, his accusations ever more serious (he claims for one that Luna seeks to establish a dictatorship).
That’s Luna the Patton-like maverick; for Luna the man his mother Laureana (a fiery Bing Pimentel) walks him through his memories — the camera pushing past the pair into the painting of a flower vase, the picture frame in turn pulling apart to reveal the Luna household of his childhood (as Tarog admits, the single most difficult shot in the film). You think of Ophuls and his waltz-like long takes; you sense a theatrical audacity to the moment that makes you wonder if perhaps Tarog had once worked in Philippine theater, or some similar venue that deals with spatial continuity as opposed to conjoined imagery (the realm of the veteran film editor). You can’t help but feel that the production has attempted to leap a little distance beyond what most Hollywood biopics nowadays would dare, at the risk of embarrassing themselves, and largely succeeded.
The script (by E.A. Rocha and Henry Hunt Francia, later rewritten by Tarog) is considerably less audacious, outlining Luna’s many flaws (his barely checked temper, his arrogant and abrasive manner, his inability to indulge in expedient politicking to advance his agenda) while ultimately insisting that his uncompromising courage trumps all. The story is reasonably seasoned with humor (Luna’s attempt to hijack a train, his unflappable good cheer in the face of certain death) and manages to suggest some of Luna’s contradictions — the observation for one that Luna seemed able to earn the respect of his military enemies far more readily than he does that of his putative allies — without (alas) presenting them in more disturbing terms, a la David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia.
John Arcilla goes a long way towards selling said script; his larger-than-life swagger helps bridge the gaps in psychological and historical plausibility, and his considerable charisma keeps the audience on his side even when his character is at his most violently furious (something George C. Scott managed to pull off when he played a general). The legendary Luna temper unfortunately is only roughly sketched out — perhaps for context they might have included even a brief depiction (as opposed to a mere mention) of brother Juan Luna’s famous affaire scandaleuse, when in a fit of jealousy he killed his wife and mother-in-law. The less legendary Luna intellect is barely hinted at — we hear that the man had a doctorate but see little of his chemical or pharmaceutical expertise in action; we also hear about the Luna Defense Line but other than a few model representations (expressed in a broad box full of dirt and sticks) we barely know how the Line should work, much less what it’s all about.
As for the rest of the cast, Pimentel stands out as Luna’s intimidating mother, Confiado as the chillingly ambiguous Aguinaldo, the always great Buencamino as his treacherous namesake Felipe.
Ultimately the film delivers sobering lessons for the Filipino viewer: that ability and talent are often rewarded with envy, suspicion, and hate; that politics is full of change yet remains essentially the same; that the Filipino’s greatest enemy and most debilitating weakness may not be the invading foreigner but his own kind (one is often ready for trouble from a foreigner, far less so from one’s own kind). Not perhaps an especially uplifting message to hear but an important one to learn, if we are ever to break out of this historical cycle — this doom if you like — of endless, remorseless, backbiting repetition.
Heneral Luna is available online in Cinetropa (https://www.cinetropa.com/).
