I saw Heneral Luna last night, a great film.
I love the script in classical Tagalog sprinkled with Spanish cursing. It's an excellent
The big houses are beautiful. The small ones of nipa and rattan, I feel like I can touch them. I love the costumes of the townspeople, the ladies, the gentlemen, soldiers, officers. The battle scenes are believable enough. They did the right amount of research-----it shows.
As usual, I'm the last to know: it was made in 2015. Recently I had heard it mentioned, here and there, and a successful film.
I could just manage to understand the dialogue in Tagalog. Had to use my dictionaries to figure out the final lines, which were important to understand,
because they were the synthesis of the film and a kind of prophecy (I could not find the word "dalig" btw, so I just inferred that it means "caught, grabbed, captured"): SEE NOTE BELOW
Hindi magtatagal, para sa pag-ibig sa Inang Bayan
Before long, for the love of Motherland
Antes de mucho algo iba a pasar, en relación al amor por la madre Filipinas
Huwaring dalá ang isang lihim na mensahe
As though a secret message was carried
Como si un mensaje secreto fuese llevada
Dinalig tayo ng isang nakakubling kamay
We were tied up by a hidden hand
Fuimos amarrados por una mano oculta
At tinapon na parang dahon sa gitna ng sigwá.
And hurled like leaves into the center of the hurricane.
Y lanzados como hojas al centro del huracán.
NOTE: "Dinalig" should have had an "n" between the "i" and the "g"; also, a bar above the "g" indicating that it was pronounced "ng". The right word was "DINALING". See explanation below.
I am also SO HAPPY that the film makes it clear that Spanish was our heroes' language too.
Finally, to me, one of the many high points in the film is when the American officer (Lawton?) says, in disbelief: "They killed their best general!"
It's the first Filipino movie I've ever seen ---hope it's not the last--- that makes you production, the uniforms look authentic. "Rayadillo" they were called, blue with thin dark stripes. think...deeply. And that makes your insides turn. Your heart stop.
The true leader unifies the people, instead of dividing them.
The Filipinos were able to fight a weak, already decadent enemy whom they also knew through and through: the Spanish.
They needed a military strategist like Luna, but the other leaders refused to accept his superior capability and only followed his orders if Aguinaldo told them to.
They saw Luna as prideful, show-offy, arrogant. They were also seeing themselves.
As Luna's lover (of the Red Cross) said: Para kayong maliit na bata. You're acting like little kids.
They were in their comfort zone. Luna was demanding they do things they had never done before: become a systematic, united fighting machine. I think that maybe they couldn't feel the same urgency Luna was feeling. They didn't have the drone vision that Luna had.
Aguinaldo had been a more successful military leader than Bonifacio and did not want to share the leadership, and he eliminated Bonifacio and his brother Procopio. Aguinaldo's military success owed much to the loyalty of his fellow caviteños and Cavite was a strong province. Then, when the U.S. launched its invasion, he found himself before a man who was superior to him in knowledge, organizational ability, personal power, and whose energy and skills he knew the revolutionary army desperately needed.
Bonifacio had been a working class nobody while Aguinaldo was the son of a bourgeois family, his father was a municipal mayor and the family was prosperous though provincial. He only had a basic education, he was not fluent in spoken or written Spanish. Luna on the other hand was a cosmopolitan man, a university graduate from Manila, then he earned a doctorate in pharmaceutical medicine in Spain and had worked in Paris, and had been a student of military science from his highschool days, when he learned fencing and sharpshooting.
Aguinaldo was astute, he was a political animal and liked being the man. However, in those days class consciousness was intense. Aguinaldo found himself in front of a man who eclipsed him in every way except one: Luna was from abroad, a city dude, an outsider. He did not have regional popularity and influence.
The military leaders of the revolutionary army were all homeboys.
They were not professional soldiers, but they had the unconditional support and obedience of their fellow provincials, or in Bonifacio's case, because he was the first to unite laborers and farmers from Manila and surrounding districts in a secret society, he had a personality and charisma so powerful that he succeeded in attracting a large number of brave men like him, where it was extremely dangerous: in Manila, which crawled with police, priests, spies and informers.
Aguinaldo was a man outwardly sure and in control of himself, inwardly (I suspect) increasingly undecisive, filled with doubts when the theater of war expanded, the stakes grew very high, the new enemy had superior weaponry, and the classic military confrontations became impossible for untrained, underfed, poorly armed Filipinos to win.
He was too slow to figure out that he had to approve Luna's proposal to switch to guerrilla warfare. He didn't have the discernment to understand that his officers and their troops had to set aside their regionalism, they had to form a united front under Luna, cooperate with his herculean efforts to whip them up into an efficient, disciplined army in the shortest time possible. Instead they took everything personally, turned petulant and treacherous.
Aguinaldo's vanity and smallness of character made him the worst commander-in-chief the Filipinos could have had. He divided the forces, coddled the undisciplined, rewarded insubordination, bent the rules, played prima donna, and yes...he was seduced by the Americans. His elegance of demeanor and dress gave him an aura of impeccability. Appearances were everything in those days. And of course, kinship and regional ties, which still hasn't changed.
There is something I find disturbing in Aguinaldo's psychology based on his behavior. He was stealthy, always disappearing before violence was done to those who in some way were stealing his thunder. He seems to have been a subtle manipulator who had no compunction against lying to cover his ass. He insisted that he never sent a telegram asking Luna to go to Cabanatuan. The wikipedia article states that a copy of the original was later found.
Luna, for his part and unfortunately, lacked diplomacy, people skills. If only Rizal could have been his right hand... But, like Rizal and so many others, Luna had not wanted to join the revolution before the Cry of Balintawak. He probably knew that there was a military debacle waiting to happen. It is to his credit that he joined after the Americans had revealed their infamy. He probably was aware that he could end up being sacrificed on the bonfire of his countrymen's vanities. With all his shortcomings though, even had he been diplomatic, the odds were against the Filipino fighting forces beating the yanks. What Luna wanted was to be a man to the end, defend the honor of and fight for the Motherland. He despised the Filipinos who couldn't wait to kiss the American's backside because they smelled the greenbacks.
Our revolution against Spain lasted from 1896 to 1898, then the Filipino-American War followed from 1898 to 1901 (the capture of Aguinaldo), though the continuation of the Katipunan was led by Macario Sakay and he was president of the Republic in the resistance from 1902 to 1906. He was persuaded to surrender to the Americans, promised a pardon, but was arrested and hanged in 1907.
Macario Sakay, Filipino revolutionary hero.
Macario Sakay is seated second from the right.
The fact is that successful revolutions take years, often decades of bitter struggle: Cuba (1868-1878, then 1952-1959); Chile (1810 to 1826); the United States (1765-1783); Vietnam (1946-1975, after fighting the Japanese from 1940-1945), just to name a few.
The movie does not show how Aguinaldo later pushed out Mabini and replaced him with Buencamino.
The movie does not show that there were Spaniards and Spanish mestizos among the officers and troops. But it does a great job just the same, it draws you into the story. I could hardly bear it. It is painful. I have to read two books, The Battle for Batangas (against the Spanish), and the History of Filipino Insurgency (not the correct title), or the American campaign, their dirty little war in "the Philippines". That was when our country got baptized "the Philippine Islands".
The movie _does show_ that women fought in the trenches, were assistants of the medics.
I do hope the movie Heneral Luna made money, because then more movies will be made about our real past.
One last comment: throughout the script Luna's men call out: "Heneral!" "Heneral!"
They probably shouted: "¡mi General!" "¡mi General!"
Está bien. it's still a great film.
He was 33 when he was assassinated.
The real Paco: Spanish mestizo Francisco Román.
Photos from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Luna#/media/File:La_Independencia_staff.jpg
Fake news
Photos from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Luna#/media/File:La_Independencia_staff.jpg
NOTE ON TRANSLATION
NOTE ON TRANSLATION
I checked my Noceda-Sanlúcar 1860 Dictionary. The definition for "dalig" does not apply:
DALIG: Tabla. Mag-, entablar. Dalinḡin mo ang sahig: pon al sahíg tabla. También daliguín mo iton cahoy, haz tabla de este palo.
Then there is an entry for DALING: Vide dalin.
DALIN: Atar varas unas con otras en sus cercos ó vacores ["vacor" does not exist according to the RAE. I believe this is a printing error and should read "vapores"]. Mag-, pag-in [magdaling, pagdalinin], las cañas. Y, el bejuco [I don't know what this last phrase means, i.e., why "Y" is italicized.].
The Diccionario Hispano-Tagálog of Pedro Serrano-Laktaw solved the connundrum.
Dáling. Amarradura; atadura. f. (del piso de caña). ---Pandaling. Bejuco. m. (preparado para atadura del sahig). ---Dalingin. Amarrar. Atar, a. (con bejuco los sahígs del suelo).
