Joel Torre and rectifying history

MANILA, Philippines - What do we really know of Philippine history? Who are the heroes and who are the villains? Or are there really heroes and villains?  Amigo is a brave new film produced, written and directed by an American couple who have taken it upon themselves to retell the history of the Philippine-American war in the proper perspective, with Filipinos Joel Torre and Mario Ontal as co-producers.

We had heard of the filming of Amigo in the wilds of Bohol in 2010 when attempting to contact some theater actors like Bodjie Pascua, Spanky Manikan, and Ronnie Lazaro for an event and were told they were shooting an international picture in the boondocks. The film which opens July 6 in the Philippines before going on a US tour will hopefully help correct misconceptions about the conflict by dealing, in the words of director-writer-editor John Sayles, “with one of the most common but least-examined aspects of human experience — the story of the people caught in-between.”

In the film, Spain had just ceded the Philippines to the US through the Treaty of Paris for $20M and the Filipino resistance is once again active, this time against the new colonizers. At a barrio in Luzon, Joel who as its head finds himself in a situation not really unusual during the war for independence. He is torn between freedom and domination. His son and brother are with the resistance, but he knows he must protect his people in the barrio and keep up appearances of cooperation with the American military aggressors. This is the core of the movie which Joel and his wife Rio Locsin put up with in the barrio, while Ronnie Lazaro as his brother, and Bembol Roco lead the guerilla movement up in the mountains not far away. Joel would visit his brother and son (outstandingly played by a non-actor found in Bohol) to feed them information. It is a dangerous game he plays and one that had no other way but to end tragically.

From left: Raul Manicad, Ermie Concepcion and Bodjie Pascua

At the premiere at Trinoma led by Joel, director John and his wife producer Maggie Renzi, we also spotted Rio (taking a few minutes off from taping); directors Joel Lamangan, Cathy Garcia-Molina, Wenn Deramas and Loy Arcenas; Bodjie Pascua, Joe Gruta, Raul Manikan (brother of Spanky given a superb solo guitar spot in the film,) Ermie Concepcion; veteran make-up and prosthetics expert Cecile Baon; as well as dozens of ensemble actors in revolutionary period costumes milling around, adding color to the scene. Cinematographer Lee Meily, production designer Rodell Cruz, costume designer Gino Gonzales, musical director/composer Mason Daring completed the major creative components. Margie Templo is line producer. It is significant that John chose to use Filipinos for technical requirements. Guests to the affair included Beth Day Romulo and writer Nick de Ocampo who has written perhaps the most number of books delineating the emergence of the film tradition in the country.

Pre-screening was held in the lobby where an exhibition of the actual period costumes designed by Gonzales used in the film will be on exhibit until July 5 at the Trinoma cinema lobby.

The film itself, produced at a $1.5M would be the budget of a Star Cinema film, but Amigo is in essence an indie, its heart and soul are independent. Its distribution system is small and specialized. John seems to be at home in these conditions with non-traditional non-mainstream movies, telling us, “I have based some of my movies on history, but what interests me is not only that you’ve learned of history but that you get caught up in people’s lives.”

Joel is not that comfortable. He appeals to the audience to please tell friends to watch the movie as it is running against the gigantic Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon and Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 2. A DepEd endorsement, nevertheless could help placate his fears. In August, Joel takes leave from his 100 Days to Heaven to promote Amigo targeting the Fil-Ams in New York, the East and West coasts and Honolulu. “I might be away for three weeks, but I think this is also very important. It’s for our history,” Joel states. “There are four million Filipinos out there, so if we can get only 20 percent of that population, that’s a big number to help the producers get their money back and be able to do another film.”

Joel misleading American military in search of a guerilla hideout

About 12 years ago, John reveals he came across this history of the Philippine-American war. “Why haven’t I heard of this? I started talking to my Filipino friends who said they really didn’t know much about it either. It is a history not taught in school and certainly not to people of Joel’s generation, although now Filipino historians have began picking it up.”

John had written Men with Guns (1997), a low-budget road movie set in strife-torn Latin America, with dialogue in Spanish and indigenous languages nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign-Language. Two years later, Limbo, told of three damaged people finding each other in the extremes of Alaska. It got invited in competition to Cannes and remains John’s most controversial movie.

His novel Some Time in the Sun renamed A Moment in the Sun tackles the 1898 war between the US and Spain over the Philippines, said to be a precursor of US military exploits in Vietnam and Iraq. His films are politically aware with social concerns running through them. A Moment in the Sun deals with a crossroad in the struggle for the soul of America. “In his most spectacular work of fiction to date, filmmaker Sayles combines wonder and outrage in a vigorous dramatization of overlooked and downright shameful aspects of turn-of-the-nineteenth-century America… Sayles re-creates the ferment and conflicts of the Yukon gold rush, hobo life, New York’s sweatshops, the race riot and white supremacist coup in Wilmington, North Carolina and the covered-up horrors of the Philippine-American War (the focus of Sayles’s forthcoming film, Amigo)” commented reviewer Donna Seaman.

It is significant that John wrote Joel’s part with him in mind which he says he doesn’t get to do very often. Amigo is written in English (the military), Tagalog (Luzon natives), Spanish and Latin (Spaniard Yul Vasquez as Padre Hidalgo), and an entire scene with imported Chinese to speak Cantonese, with a predominance of Tagalog. As we watch we are taken in by the Tagalog dialogue as natives would deliver them, unsullied and trusting. Any Pinoy viewer here or in the Americas would be touched to the core. Small wonder, we find later in the website poet-writer Pete Lacaba credited for Tagalog translation. Bravo Pete! And likewise Bravo John Sayles who auditioned the Filipino cast in Tagalog admitting to us he did this on the basis of emotion. Truly, as film critic Joel David has written, “John Sayles transcends the boundaries of race and nationality so utterly and triumphantly that he can justifiably be called a major Filipino filmmaker.”

It is immediately apparent that this fictional indie is a major contribution to Philippine history in film. Scriptwriter Ricky Lee points out that “Amigo presents both its Filipino and American characters with difficult choices that eventually define not only them but their respective nations. It is history lesson come alive.”

A movie without bidas and kontrabidas? That’s right and it is about time that our audience gets to appreciate this kind of movies where black is not black but gray most of the time, and the stars only act out these roles on the screen but are ordinary people in real life. We love Forever and a Day where the lead star KC Concepcion dies, and In My Life where matinee idols John Lloyd Cruz and Luis Manzano play gay lovers. In Amigo, if there is any villain it would be the misguided Padre Hidalgo, a remnant of the Spanish invasion, and perhaps the John Arcilla ambitious character. Otherwise, it is a touching, at times romantic, many times funny depiction of life under threat that continues till today, perhaps not through armed combat, but through even more evil and underhanded political and economic maneuverings. 

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