IF WE have our epic film Heneral Luna, the Spanish now have their own look at their colonial past in 1898: Los Ultimos de Filipinas (Our Last Men in the Philippines), based on true accounts.
The directorial debut of Salvador Calvo, the film’s events take place during the summer of 1898 on the village of Baler in Luzon. A detachment of Spanish soldiers led by Captain Enrique de las Morenas and Lieutenant Cerezo are sent to the village to protect it against Filipinos, “rebel insurgents.” The captain later succumbs to beri-beri and dies, leaving Cerezo in command.
The soldiers turn the church into a military stronghold and endure against attackers for an unbelievable 337 days, almost a year, with Cerezo unable to accept that Spain has ceded the Philippine islands to the United States at the end the Spanish-American War. One by one, the soldiers fall to fighting and illness, until one of them—Carlos, a painter and opium addict—finds a way to end the conflict and preserve the lives of his remaining comrades.
The film’s tagline is: Hay hombres que quieren medallas y hombres que quiren volver (There are men who want medals and there are men who want to return). This is a succinct characterization of Cerezo, whose pride renders him unwilling to surrender, and Carlos, who wants to stop fighting a war that has ended and that no longer has meaning.
There are at least two Filipinos in the cast, Alexandra Masangkay, who plays Teresa, “an indigenous woman,” and the versatile Raymond Bagatsing as Comandante Luna.
Film critic Jonathan Hopper, who reviewed “1898” for the Hollywood Reporter, says it “offers little that’s new but is still about as close as Spanish cinema has come of late to anything approaching epic cinema. Though its subject matter and general focus are utterly Spanish, its purely cinematic qualities makes it deserving of offshore exposure.”
Hopper goes on to praise the acting skills of the cast, while lamenting that the story is stereotypical and clichéd. His bottom line: “Spectacular and striking, but none too subtle.”
However, Miguel Juan Payan, writing for accionsine.es, has a deeper appreciation for the film and its impact. He says, “The important thing is that behind the shots, the races, the attacks, and the deaths, there are people, characters well-drawn in the script” that between the actors’ and director’s efforts “translate into moments of good cinema.”
What the film lacks in the subtlety that Hopper seeks, it makes up for in its grand visuals, ambitious scope, and finely-wrought characterization. As Payan points out, the “shades in each character” and the “epic planes of the film and the action of the same” remind him of Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam in Apocalypse Now and Oliver Stone’s Vietnam in Platoon; which, he explains, is “logical because, were not the Philippines for Spain what years later would be Indochina for France or Vietnam for the United States?”
Payan’s bottom line: “Highly recommended. Among the best Spanish cinema that has been released this year, and that’s saying a lot because we had a good movie crop here in 2016.”
The film trailer can be viewed on the internet, and I confess it got me excited. The visuals are beautiful—the film was shot in the Canary Islands and Equatorial Guinea—and the acting that I could see in the trailer seems sincere and honest.
My enjoyment of film is simple: filmmaking is storytelling, and any missteps in accuracy and production can be forgiven if the narrative touches the heart and mind, and evokes emotion or stimulates thought. There is much praise on the internet for the high quality of the script and the dialogue, and if it tells a good story, then it’s worth watching.
The film is of much interest for Filipinos, because this is a look at how Spaniards understand and construct their past as colonizers of the Philippines. Heneral Luna is our own examination of the same time period. It’s time to find out how the other side has come to terms, if at all, with this historical event that has had enormous repercussions on our society and psyche as a people.
Dr. Ortuoste is a California-based writer. Follow her on Facebook: Jenny Ortuoste, Twitter: @jennyortuoste, Instagram: @jensdecember