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Heneral Luna
English Translation: General Luna
Additional Languages: English, Spanish
Year of Release: 2015
Director: Jerrold Tarog
Screenwriters: Henry Francia, E.A. Rocha, & Jerrold Tarog
Producer: Artikulo Uno Productions
Cast: John Arcilla, Mon Confiado, Arron Villaflor, Jeffrey Quizon, Paulo Avelino, Joem Bascon, Archie Alemania, Arthur Acuña, Alex Vincent Medina, Marc Abaya, Alvin Anson, David Bianco, Nonie Buencamino, Mylene Dizon, Edgar Ebro, Julia Enriquez, Ketchup Eusebio, Anthony Falcon, Dennis Marasigan, Leo Martinez, Allan Paule, Bing Pimentel
A generally faithful account of conflicts in the ranks of the Philippine revolutionary army, during the transition from Spanish to American colonization. President Emilio Aguinaldo and his cabinet disagree about what strategy to adopt regarding the Americans’ offer of help in routing the Spanish army. One faction is calling for trade relations with the US, but General Antonio Luna prefers to redirect against the Americans their largely successful campaign against Spain, to ensure that the country remain free from foreign occupation. When the fledgling government learns that the Americans have already started attacking major centers in the Philippines, Luna leads the charge against the new colonial aspirants. When he discovers that reinforcements from the Aguinaldo camp arrive too little and too late, Luna’s well-known hot temper leads to him to burn a few bridges with some of his former allies.
Instances—anywhere in the world, not just in the Philippines—where independent players manage to beat mainstream studios at their own game are so rare that their emergence provides filmmakers and audiences with always-welcome optimism. What adds to Heneral Luna’s significance is its historical record as a social-media phenomenon, following earlier pop-culture samples like TV’s AlDub kalyeserye (a semi-improvised courtship narrative) and prefiguring the successful run of the least conventional candidate, Rodrigo Duterte, during the 2016 presidential election. Heneral Luna distinguished itself further primarily because, a few dissenting voices notwithstanding, it delivered on its promise of providing a now-rare combination of rollicking entertainment, substantial sociopolitical insight, and that emotional intangible that today’s young Pinoys call “hugot”—roughly equivalent to the millennial generation’s “hardcore emo.” Jerrold Tarog opted to revive a formerly popular but now-moribund genre, the historical period film, and invested it with humor, magic realism, and the several loose threads that typify any controversial historical account. The movie provided an abundance of meme-worthy lines, with the pithy “Bayan o sarili?” [Nation or self?] consolidating the movie’s arguments as well as its prescription for the future. Of better subsequent import would be Tarrog’s announcement that, because of the movie’s unexpected success, two other period projects on similarly larger-than-life controversial leaders, Gregorio del Pilar and Manuel L. Quezon, have been slated for production. High-caliber production values attest to Tarog’s whiz-kid stature in taking charge of specific aspects of production, including editing and music.
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