Ever since the movie ‘Heneral Luna’ hit the theatres, I have heard nothing but praises and pledges to watch the movie so that it’s showing would not be cancelled. After a week, I decided to judge the movie for myself.
At the beginning of the movie, I was surprised to see so many faces of comedians who I never thought to see on a film about Philippine History. It kind of made me hard to take them acting seriously at first but then they pulled me through. The acting at first for me was exaggerated, sort of much more suited in a theater than film but even that faded away as I grew more and more engrossed with the story. As the movie progresses, I became an observer of injustice and shrewd politics that we Filipinos have been trying and yet continuously failing to cease.
I could hear the comments of the people behind me who had nothing but harsh words to say to the then president Emilio Aguinaldo who, scared of being overthrown, followed the ill advise of men who used him to gain profit for their personal ventures, and killed off two of the most lauded heroes of our country, Andres Bonifacio and Gen. Antonio Luna.
It was already hard to swallow how Filipinos were being killed just because Americans then wanted to rule over us. Whether it be women or men, child or elderly, they had no respect for human life. We were then nothing but a prize for them to claim.The worst thing though was the portrayal of Filpinos who regard their pride and selfishness higher than their love for their own country. They are even willing to kill off a fellow Filipino if it would benefit their personal need.
Here are facts that were not taught to us in elementary school, some horrid truth that were kept hidden until we reach tertiary education, for how can we explain to a child who looks up to the heroes in their textbooks, that they are also behind the death of some of their own.
Heneral Luna showed us a picture of the Filipino-Spanish war, but more importantly of how we Filipino dealt with the situation. It didn’t focus on the war per se, but more on how politics perform at the time. It was a comedy, a tragedy, a mixture of real life and the imaginary, the story of Heneral Luna, the story of our history.
Miranda's Inkblot 