AGUILA MOVIE REVIEW

It is 1980. The influential and affluent Águila family celebrate the 88th birthday of their
missing and long-presumed dead patriarch, Daniel Águila (Fernando Poe Jr.). It truly becomes a
celebration of Daniel's life when his son, Mari (Christopher de Leon), receives news that Daniel
is alive, living somewhere in the provinces. Mari, a business tycoon and former Senator, combs
the countryside in search of his father. In the course of his search, the Águila family history is
unravelled. Spanning a period of 80 years, it covers the 1896 Philippine Revolution, the
American occupation, the Japanese era, Post-War reconstruction and the student militant
activities of the late 1960s to early 1970s.
It all begins when Daniel's father, Artemio (Dave Brodett), an officer in the Revolutionary
Army, dies by treachery. His mother, Isabel Teodoro (Amalia Fuentes), is raped by that same
traitor, Simeon Garrido (Eddie Garcia), and later marries him for convenience. As a young
soldier accompanying Simeon to Mindanao, Daniel again becomes witness to injustice: Simeon
and some Americans ruthlessly take away Muslim tribal lands.
Daniel's life is one of complexity - of human emotions and relationships. His affair with a
Muslim woman, Farida (Andrea Andolong), results in a love-child, Osman (Jay Ilagan). He
marries a lawyer named Sally (Charo Santos), Mari's mother, who later falls ill and dies. He also
discovers the incestuous liaison between Simeon and Lilian (Elizabeth Oropesa), his half-sister,
who in turn unsuccessfully attempts to seduce him.
Daniel's experiences during World War II and with the American-controlled post-war
government only increase his mounting disenchantment with life and society. Mari's amoral
political ambitions and his grandson's, Raul (Ricky Sandico), activist stance drives him further
into disillusionment. Finally, Daniel heeds his longing for peace and leaves. Mari's journey ends
when he finds Daniel in an Aeta village in Bohol, where Daniel has found serenity, far from the
maddening machinations and injustices committed by a civilized society.
Film director and scribe Nick Deocampo points out that the film may be examined to
better appreciate the value of the family as a basic institution of the society. The family as a
basic institution of the society was enshrined in §4, Art. II of the 1973 Constitution, the law in
force at the time of the film's release, which not only recognizes the family as such but also
endeavors to protect and strengthen the same. The same provision was carried over to the
1987 Constitution where an entire section is devoted to the family.
In the film, family life in the Philippines is examined through historical lenses as it
depicts the evolution of the Filipino family throughout history and how its values are formed
and/or changed.
The family is likewise peered into through the eyes of Daniel Águila as he has lived
through an ever evolving and ever growing family - first having grown fatherless and then
having a difficult relationship with his mother, Isabel, because of her decision to remarry a man
Daniel detests, a choice which was itself imposed upon Isabel by her own parents; then as a
family man himself, how Daniel copes with his own children who has views opposite to his and
whose views shape the paths they chose to take in life.
The film likewise explores alienation within one's own family, as seen in the experiences
of Daniel, Osman, Mari and Lilian who all feel like they are outsiders within their own family at
certain points in the film.
Another point the film touches upon is how the family shapes its members, specifically
how familial experience molded Daniel Águila as a person. This film has been cited as an
unconventional FPJ-movie as it shows FPJ as Daniel Águila being vulnerable, a departure from
the typical roles that show Poe as an infallible and incorruptible conquering hero. In the film,
Daniel's failings as a man and as head of the family is shown and it examines how these define
Daniel as a person and how it influenced the Águila family.
Being under the genre of historical drama, the film depicts how values, not only in the
family but in the larger Philippine society, evolves. It shows how Daniel and his family and the
values they hold are a product of their times, how their choices are informed by the prevailing
values and trends of a given period. This is exemplified in the character arc of Mari, who, in
entering the political arena becomes swept by its corruption and inevitably becomes part of the
machinery that he once sought to change. This is likewise shown in the arc of Raul, who is
driven to suicide because of the realization that his hero and mentor, Margo, was willing to give
up their cause for personal reasons, much like Cadio and Basilio before her.
Alienation again takes the spotlight as Daniel is driven into abandoning his family and
choosing to live in both Cotabato and Bohol to escape a society that has become more and
more unfamiliar to him. In both communities, he helps its residents and teaches them self-
reliance.