Bayaning Third World (roughly translated as 3rd World Hero) is a Filipino

independent film from 2000 by Mike de Leon which invetigates Jose Rizals life ,
heroism, love life and other significant facts that made him a national hero.
Considered a complex film within a film (according to an essay written by highly
accredited theologian, Antonio D. Sison), it loosely but firmly targets a controversial
retraction document. The said document was supposed to expose the national
heros renouncement of all his writing and works that are against the Catholic
Church during the Spanish rule in the Philippines, of whether it was authentic or
fabricated. The film won numerous awards in the 23rd Gawad Urian Awards
including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. This movie was also dedicated
to the late actress Charito Solis.
It is reported that the original text was published in La Voz Espanola and Diaro De Manila, dated December 30,
1896, the very day after Jose Rizal's death. A second text appeared in Barcelona, Spain in a magazine called
La Juventud where in this reproduction, it was revealed that the source of the copy was from a Jesuit, Father
Balaguer, who has maintained anonimity for 14 years after its public release. For the original text, no one has
actually claimed witness to the retraction document except La Voz Espanola, stating that they have read Rizals
own hand writing and was given to the Archbishop. There is much debate and controversy towards the
retraction, though most historians and have deemed it to be false. Ricardo Lopez, author of Rizal Beyond the
Grave, concludes that the handwriting in the said document was not Jose Rizals. Furthermore, he said there
was no justification that Rizals remains were buried in holy ground, nor was there a certification of marriage
between Rizal and Josephine Bracken. Senator Rafael palma, the former President of the University of the
Philippines and a prominent Mason, strengthened this argument and stated that the retraction is in proportion
with Rizals character and mature beliefs. Other known anti- retraction prominents are Frank Laubach, a wellknown evangelical Christian missionary, Austin Coates, a British writer, and Ricardo Manapat, the Director of
the National Archives.
Some also still argue that Rizals handwriting on the document and his catholic gestures before his death was
witnessed and authentic. Teodoro Kalaw, 33rd degree mason and handwriting experts, H. Otley Beyer and Dr.
Jose I. Del Rosario, both of UP, deemed that the retraction is genuine. It has also been stated that there were
11 eyewitnesses present during Rizals recital of Catholic prayers, signing of a Catholic prayer book, and the
writing of his supposed retraction. The same witnesses also saw him kissing the crucifix before his untimely
execution. Father Marciano Guzman, a great grand nephew of Rizal, divulged that Rizal confessed four times
and was certified by 15 witnesses, 7 newspapers, and 12 historians and writers including Aglipayan bishops
Masons and anti-clericals.

This is not a Rizal film

Bayaning Third World (Third World Hero, 2000)
is Mike De Leon's long-awaited film on Jose Rizal. It
took over three years to complete, beginning way
back in 1996 with the announcement by GMA Films

of a massive, P70 million epic starring boy-toy Aga

Muhlach as Rizal. Then Muhlach left, reportedly
because De Leon was taking so long; eventually De
Leon himself abandoned the production, to
announce that he was making his own,
independently produced film. No less than three
other Rizal films were initiated and finished while
De Leon's picture maturated: Tikoy Aguiluz's Rizal
sa Dapitan (Rizal in Dapitan, 1997); Marilou Diaz
Abaya'sJose Rizal (1998--ironically, the same
production GMA Films intended De Leon to direct,
rumored to have an even bigger--P120 million-budget); and Mario O'Hara's Sisa. De Leon's picture
was invited--sight unseen, mind you--to the
Director's Fortnight at Cannes International Film
Festival (which it failed to attend). There were long
periods when no one knewwhat was happening-the project was shrouded in a secrecy as tight and
mysterious, it seemed, as Kubrick's own latest (and
last) work, Eyes Wide Shut (1999).
I finally saw the finished product last week, and can
personally testify to the atmosphere of electric
anticipation that gripped the audience. Some
eighty minutes later, when the film's end credits
began to roll, an image and six words popped into
my mind.
The image: Magritte's famous painting about a
pipe, and its enigmatic label.

The six words: "This is not a Rizal movie."

Or, it's not a Rizal film any more than Magitte's
pipe is not a pipe.
The film follows two filmmakers (played by Ricky
Davao and Cris Villanueva) as they attempt to do
pre-production research on a film on Rizal. The two
get into endless, impassioned debates; they
propose all sorts of absurdities (Rizal Underarm
Spray), and make witty observations (Rizal on a
devalued one-peso coin is still Number One). They
interview people from Rizal's life--his brother
Paciano (Joonee Gamboa), his sisters Trining (Rio
Locsin) and Narcisa (Cherry Pie Picache), his
mother, Dona Lolay (Daria Ramirez), his (reputed)
confessor, Father Balaguer (a hilariously villainous
Ed Rocha), and his (reputed) wife, Josephine
Bracken (Lara Fabregas).

Their conclusion (people who wish to stay surprised

may want to skip to the next paragraph...though
doing so may ultimately prove pointless) after
much hemming and hawing basically boils down to
this: Rizal's life is unfilmable. It's the long,
shapeless and rather inactive life of an intellectual
bum (something I concluded myself long ago, when
I was involved in writing the screenplay of Rizal sa
Dapitan). De Leon (with his scriptwriter and codirector, Clodualdo Del Mundo) go so far as to allow
that many interpretations can be made from Rizal's
life--"sari-sarilingRizal" or, roughly translated, "to
each his own Rizal."

Significantly, the film lacks certain basic elements

of traditional narrative film: a dramatic story,
recognizable character arcs--no one is changed or
transformed during the course of the film (the two
filmmakers, who enjoy star billing, are named
"filmmakers 1 and 2"). The last shot has the two
filmmakers (stand-ins for De Leon and Del Mundo?)
throwing up their hands and walking away from the
project (as De Leon did, years ago). This is a Rizal
movie about the impossibility of making a Rizal
movie; in short, not a Rizal movie.
Possibly the single most brilliant director of the
Philippines (alive or dead) and his closest and best
scriptwriter have played a joke on the longexpectant--three years in the making, not to
mention the waiting--Philippine public. And what a
joke! A long, elaborate, multi-layered, richly
allusive--drawing not just on practically everything
we know about Philippine history and our national
hero, but also everything Mike De Leon knows
(which is considerable) about film and filmmaking-prank.
And the punchline works like a time bomb: you
may find yourself laughing your head off hours
after seeing the film, or--some days later-chuckling. Or you may not laugh at all; to each his
own reaction to the film.
The film is stuffed with jokes and references. The

structure is modeled on Orson Welles' Citizen Kane,

the first twenty or so minutes a fast and funny
recapitulation of Rizal's life and significance (a la
Kane's life, recapitulated in The March of
Time sequence); later we have interviews of the
different people who knew Kane--sorry, Rizal. One
shot, of a Filipino declaiming in front of a huge
banner, recalls a similar one in Welles' film, where
Kane is at a political rally; several times we catch
the filmmakers poring over a huge blow-up of
Rizal's execution--a direct quote from
Michaelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up. De Leon's
favorite German Shepherd makes several
appearances, gently mocking Alfred Hitchcock's
tendency to make personal appearances in his
pictures.
Other jokes: Cris Villanueva talking to different
people and concluding that their life's story would
make a better film than Rizal's; Father Balaguer's
testimony of Rizal's last days in prison, which De
Leon mercilessly lampoons in all kinds of ways
(having read part of Balaguer's testimony, I would
say De Leon manages to make fun of him without
once exaggerating him). My personal
favorite however would be the filmmakers'
climactic confrontation with Rizal himself (Joel
Torre). His replies to their questions prevaricate
hilariously, as befits a true student of Jesuits
("What did you do the night before your

execution?" "The Spaniards did what they had to

do; I did what I had to do.").
Some reservations: despite the astonishingly wide
range covered by this relatively short film, De Leon
fails to bring up the matter of money--the difficulty
of funding a Rizal film, or any film for that matter
(De Leon's experience after the GMA debacle
should have made him an expert on the subject).
Lara Fabregas ruins the fascinatingly unreliable
character of Josephine Bracken (did she marry
Rizal, or didn't she?) with a cartoon English accent
straight out of Repertory Philippines--I mean,
"newbody tawks loyk that!" And De Leon blunts the
sharpened point of his joke with a voiceover
statement at the very end of the film-to sift through all that ambivalence and ambiguity,
only to have everything cleared up at the very last
second! Del Mundo admits, though, that that final
voiceover is still tentative, and may be removed
during the film's final sound remixing;here's to
hoping they do (note: they didn't, which is a pity).
Where does De Leon's film stand in comparison
with other recent Rizal flicks? I can't comment
regarding Rizal sa Dapitan for obvious reasons; I do
think Bayaning Third World is superior to the
monumental Jose Rizal. The former in its eighty
short minutes covers more of Rizal's life than
thelatter does in three hours, with more clarity and

historical accuracy. De Leon's film gives proper-that is, primal--importance to the question of
Rizal's alleged retraction, framing the issue thus: if
Rizal didn't retract, then he stuck to his principles
and died a hero (and heretic). If Rizal didretract
and returned to the Church, then he went against
everything he had written and said and died a
coward (or, as I would put it, a recognizably human
being). Jose Rizal's position that Rizal retracted and
is still somehow a hero is, as De Leon's film so
eloquently points out (without once directly
pointing anything out), a complete contradiction.
I can't quite call De Leon's film superior to
O'Hara's Sisa (1998); both recognize the difficulty
of filming the life of Rizal, both use diametrically
opposite approaches--Bayaning Third World filling
up the gaps with wit and intellectual
speculation, Sisa with imagination and
heart. Bayaning Third World displays remarkable
ingenuity in trying to make what should have been
a dry historical debate lively and
involving; Sisa displays equally remarkable
ingenuity in trying to make a coherent and even
moving historical drama out of an impossibly small
P2.5 million ($25,000) budget, shot in ten days
(Bayaning Third World, though I can't be sure, must
cost at least P5 million or more, shot for over a
year). Calling one better than the other is probably
a matter of taste (personally--and I think you can
see this coming a mile away--I plunk down in favor

of imagination and heart). Both films, however,

should be a matter of modest pride for all involved:
Rizal brilliantly deconstructed on film, twice! This
may not be a Rizal film, but it's a remarkable Rizal
film nevertheless.
We are a nation fascinated with Jose Rizal not just his heroism but also his being a womanizer, his
classic hair style and many more. We devour two of his greatest literary works in secondary schools. We
celebrate his birth and execution dates. We have countless movies relating to Rizal and his works. We
even name our streets (Rizal Avenue, Rizal Province), corporations (RCBC), schools (Rizal High School)
and products after him. Theres even a religion devoted to Rizal and his works. Even the most wellknown place in Laguna is Calamba (Rizals hometown), not Santa Cruz which is its capital.

Despite being subjected to countless scrutinizes by various

historians, how well do we know Rizal? Is it really important to know him adequately since hes our
nations symbol to our fight against four centuries of foreign colonialism?
Bayaning Third World, directed by Mike de Leon, is a mockumentary on making a film about Rizal. Lots
of questions were thrown around and dissected in this feature film that concern Rizal. Have Rizal really
written and signed a retraction letter signifying his intention to turn back from his beliefs and re-join the
Catholic Church? Did he marry Josephine Bracken? Did he retract so that he can marry Josephine
Bracken? (There was no civil wedding back then.)
These were discussed in the film by interviewing various people connected to Rizal for their points of
view. Throughout the film, the filmmakers (Ricky Davao and Cris Villanueva) asked lots of questions,
examined evidences, analyzed various information they have gotten from their interviews and still
didnt reach a conclusion about the questions they want to clarify right from the start. The more they

dug deeper, the more questions left unanswered popped up. Its one big loop that mocks the futility of
digging deep down Rizals personal life, his inner feelings and motivations.
Cris Villanueva always asks if its still relevant to discuss these issues a century after Rizals death.
Maybe it is still relevant so that we can have a hero who will not be anymore subjected to doubts by
many scholars a flawless hero so to speak to maintain Rizals legacy to our country.
But what is a hero really? Is there a perfect or flawless hero? Will there ever be an unblemished hero?
A long time already went by since Rizals death. A lot of things have already happened since 1896.
Maybe knowing the complete story is not that important anymore. Rizal is an image of Filipino
intelligence and an inspiration to the youth of today and tomorrow. Many look up to him. If the truth
would tarnish everything that was built and preserved, maybe its not worth pursuing anymore. So what
if he retracted his statements and beliefs? We are already influenced by Rizal in many ways positively
I believe. His greatness would not be diminished by a mere renunciation since damage was already
inflicted to the colonizers by his works and statements. Nothing will ever change today.
On the technical aspect, this film is superior with its use of black and white (perfect for the period of
time covered by the film), mock commercials and re-creations and parodies of historic events (e.g.
execution of Rizal where he run away from his executors). One interesting bit of information; the actors
did not know they are filming a comedy. This was done to preserve the authenticity of their acting since
not knowing that theyre filming a comedy, the actors would not force themselves trying to be funny.
This strategy worked excellently for this film as spontaneity and zest were preserved throughout the
film.
The Final Word
The final segment of the film dubbed as Kanya-Kanyang Rizal conveyed that we know Rizal in lots of
different ways. Depending on who we ask, a different version of Rizal will always be told. Its like
history in general, where even in the presence of various pieces of evidences there would always be
some room for a historians opinion to enter his discussion. What would history become without
discussions and debates? A mere collection of information regarding and records of the past. Its an
endless cycle, almost futile, but not entirely useless since it encourages us to think within our own
minds.