Marilou Diaz-Abaya Illustrates
An Ilustrado
Jose Rizal (1998)
Seemingly aware of the questions about Rizal's heroism, Abaya may at times look here as if she's simply recording the effects of Rizal's major writings on the Andres Bonifacio-led revolt against Spain. She clearly avoids what Mike de Leon's later Bayaning Third World tried to do with one document: scan likewise the provocations of Rizal's more obscure writings, for after all these writings probably stimulated historians more than they did Rizal's contemporaries. In light of Bonifacio's idolizing Rizal, who would have dared conjecture then that Emilio Jacinto's anti-ilustrado attitude probably had as its stimulus one of Rizal's intermittent pronouncements of reservation towards labor-deriving governance?
Abaya's positioning is wise. After all, one must consider the present atmosphere of conflict where 1) Rizalists (if we should call them that) continue to pound on us the idea that Rizal found the Katipunan wanting of a more rounded ideology, and 2) the anti-Rizalists point fingers at the elite Chinese-Filipino Emilio Aguinaldo's Katipunan (and other "elitists" like Rizal, the Lunas, etc.) as the very personas devoid of ideology other than that which -- whatever it may be -- might retain their ownership of tracts of land (or recoup land lost to the Church, as in Rizal's case)
One of Abaya's strongest illustrations of this Rizalian inspirational influence on Katipunan enthusiasm can be felt in the scene where the Katipunan had to tear their cedulas in defiance of Spain's sovereignty and governance, an action supposedly backgrounded by shouts of "Mabuhay si Dr. Jose Rizal!"
Meant as a film about Rizal the man, indeed the movie's filmic focus beamed instead on Rizal's solely journalistic/inspirational impact on the Katipunan (textual triggers, however, acknowledged by the Church-sponsored Spanish government as more dangerous than Bonifacio's militarist boldness). This focal shift in a supposedly biographical film (as per its title), whether conscious or not, is -- again -- understandable. Apart from effectually skirting possible outcries from mostly leftist sources of doubt on Rizal's hero-title, Abaya's approach clearly defines Rizal the hero as Rizal the writer, better yet, as his writings himself. And his writings do reflect Rizal the man's contradictory lines (and lines of denial), as shown in the film's script, and these contradictions may reflect the man as either a coward or a wise skirter of execution or imprisonment. Stretching our generous patience further, we might ask, indeed would psychoanalysts have cared less if they discovered Freud's motives to have been merely comedic for Academia's louts? They wouldn't. After all, in the post-structuralist age, the effect of a work of art might be regarded as a better measurement of the artist than the artist himself.
The scene that tries to illustrate Rizal the magician, however, is just the kind (regardless of their truth or falsehood) that generates doubts about Rizal the man as hyped up by historian-dreamers who mold untouchable icons/legends out of historical humans full of errors. We feel the same way about Rizal the judo cum ESP artist embarrassing an assassin in Tikoy Aguiluz' Rizal Sa Dapitan. We might as well go with the theory that Rizal was Jesus incarnate. Both Abaya's and Aguiluz' films, however, have theses that render those flaws as minor.
Abaya's film's thesis, almost in answer to anti-Rizal UP Professor Domingo de Guzman's tracts questioning Rizal's present position in history, simply lays down 1) the fundamental truth that Rizal (after all) did write of his disillusionment with the idea of reform and 2) had actually, albeit with confused reservations (or reluctant commitment, by way of dedicating his novel to Burgos/Gomez/Zamora while denying dissent to the Spaniards), implied the inevitability of an undesired revolt. The disillusionment leading to a mental (or armchair) abandonment of all reformist tendencies was truly undesired, for -- to Rizal -- still consciously hounding him with a militarily and politically tragic picture of an outcome. One of these outcomes would perhaps be -- to Rizal according to De Guzman -- one involving pictures of class-driven anarchic inevitability. In a way, Rizal's impressions were almost prophetic, although he should have known most of the errors might derive from the upper class: Aguinaldo upon Bonifacio, for example.
Thus, it's as if Abaya (and screenwriters Ricky Lee/Jun Lana/Peter Ong Lim) led us to focus our minds on the novel Il Filibusterismo as the journal of sorts, the one noting down Rizal's mental struggle to defeat all sides to himself along with a possible lack of courage.
A friend has noted technical flaws. Very straight-edged "bond paper" on Rizal's desk, and French not Spanish furnishing/accessories in some house scenes. And did I hear a lot of Spanish "s" also pronounced as "th"? But on the technical side still, superb sound, very realistic miking and dubbing. The actors can be "theatrical," however, as can Abaya (in. the "lesson of the moth" scene, for example); but okay, just tell me these were to echo remnants of a Romantic influence on the period setting.
So, to paraphrase, this does not become a film about Rizal as icon, as we said. Abaya succeeded in cooking up a film about Rizal as his true contradictory (fearing?) self, also Rizal as a Katipunero when placed among his ilustrado kababayan's in Europe, finally about the other Rizals -- Paciano the Katipunero, Josephine Bracken-Rizal the later Katipunero..
Mabuhay ang kasaysayan ng ating bayan sa pelikula! Higit sa lahat, nawa'y mabuhay muli ang mga aral dito. Dahil ang kasaysayan ay di dapat nauuwi bilang mga sine at kuwento lamang, kundi bilang mga kuwento ng ating lahi, luha, at eksperiyensiya. Mabuhay ang sine bilang argumento at talinhaga sa pag-aaral ng kasalukuyang kalagayan! (VISV III, July 2002 - April 2004)
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