‘Heneral Luna’: Film Review

Clarence Tsui

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/heneral-luna-film-review-831202

(1) Jerrold Tarog’s Historical drama about a military commander’s

struggle for independence is the Philippines’ submission for the best foreign

language film Oscar next year.

(2) Paying tribute to the heroic military commander spearheading the

Philippine struggle for nationhood at the end of the 19th century, Heneral

Luna is a sturdy, stirring if perhaps sometimes simplistic historical epic about

bravery and treachery in a country at war. Based on the final years of Antonio

Luna, a European educated scientist-turned-soldier who was murdered by his

rival when he was just 32, Jerrold Tarog’s big budget blockbuster has

generated immense buzz in the Philippines. Local audiences have warmed to

John Arcilla’s high octane turn as Luna and also how his story mirrors the

chaos of contemporary Philippine politics.

(3) A hearts-and-minds piece serving a primer in the Southeast Asian

nation’s history and two hours of relentless swashbuckling drama. Heneral

Luna has now been selected as country’s submission for the best Foreign

Language Films Oscar next year. While the film thrives on some universal

truth about the futility of ideas in politics, it appears beyond the Philippines

and its global diaspora might be limited. Meanwhile, its mainstream

production values – an achievement in itself at home, given is standing as a

production independent from the local major studios – might hinder its fortune

on a festival circuit seeking either genre-benders like that of Erik Matti’s or

grittier fare form critical darlings like Lav Diaz, Adolfo Alix, Jr. or Jun Robles

Lana.

(4) Tarog’s mission in reconstructing his country’s national narrative is

pretty obvious, given the way he begins the film with an on-screen text stating

how “bigger truths about the Filipino Nation” could only be broached by
mixing reality and fiction. His pedagogical objectives are manifested in the

film’s framing device of Joven (Arron Villaflor), a fictional character whose

name is Spanish --- the lingua franca in colonial Philippines in the 19th

century --- for “young man.” Heneral Luna is meant to be this generic

bespectacled journalist’s observations of the life and death of a national hero.

He begins the film listening to Luna recalling his rise to power --- the