The Mark Meily-helmed Baler was the second film that I watched at the 2008 Metro Manila Film Festival (I first watched Dayo). It would have been the third since my girlfriend and I wanted something light and funny, but the queue for the film festival's comedies were longer than a Star Wars fanboy line in a film premiere.
Anyways, the decision to watch Baler earlier was a good one. The film is based on the historical event known as "The Siege of Baler," where 57 Spanish soldiers held fort in the town of Baler for almost one year (October 1898 to June 1899) during the final moments of the Spanish occupation in the Philippines. The film's story is actually a romance between a Filipino-Spanish soldier (played by Jericho Rosales) and a Filipina Baler native (played by Anned Curtis). The Romeo & Juliet-inspired love story is given a "romance in the time of war" twist.
As a film fan, I can say that Baler is already the best movie in the film festival-- the craftsmanship is definitely there. There were nice shots of the Baler town in its rural glory and the acting of Jericho Rosales and Anne Curtis is commendable. Even the supporting cast of Philip Salvador, Carlo Aquino, Rio Locsin, Nikki Bacolod and Mark Bautista had strong performances in the film.
However, I do have my nitpicks: First and foremost is the flimsy production of the Baler church where the Spanish soldiers held fort. It didn't look authentic at all and you could see how unreal it was. Second is the miscast of Anne Curtis as Feliza, the lead female character. I was wondering if there other actresses with better Filipina physical features that were more appropriate for the role. And finally, as the film wanted to be authentic to the historical events, the movie dragged on from the middle towards the end as the film tried to show the boredom and hopelessness of the Spanish soldiers as they were holed up for more than 300 days.
Baler is a good addition to the list of Philippine war epic films. And in a film festival filled with movies that aim to be commercial successes, Baler looks to be a critical and creative triumph.
Rating: 3/5
Technorati: Baler
7 comments:
Um, so aside from the truly wrong headed casting, lack of focused aim ( is this an extension of the telenovela malaise, or WHAT ? ), and apparent technical
inadequacies, it's a ' Philippine Revolution movie ' that's SYMPATHETIC TO THE SPANIARDS ?!?
That level of ' suckage ' is pretty tough to beat !
Kaya pala wala masyadong pumunta. Gungong na nga tong hayop na ' presidente ' mo, maawa ka pa raw dapat sa uri ng kolonyalismo NIYA ?!? So what's next ? They're gonna flush the Philippine flag down the toilet, and give THAT act an award ? Hehehe...
Baler sucks. It was a Filipino movie for the Spanish crowd. It is stupid, it makes the KATIPUNEROS stupid and makes heroes of traitors starred by a mestiza who speaks tagalog with a twang. Thifty eight bedraggled soldiers surrounded by more than a thousand native soldiers and they failed to storm the church? There was a reason and the movie failed to touch on the real reason other than the illicit love affair between the lovers. Viva Espana!
By and large, the story was great and so was the acting of the main characters, especially Jericho, Anne, and Philip.
(Truth be told, the Siege of Baler has always been seen by both sides as one where the Spanish hold-outs were heroic, which is really why the Katipuneros really respected them when they finally surrendered.)
Anyway, I am a nitpicker when it comes to Period Films, and I would say that while Jericho and Anne were great actors, they were (as some have already said) rather miscast. Ok, "as-is", they were miscast, but maybe some make-up magic and some extensive beach-tanning for Anne might have made it much more believable for us to think that Jericho's character was half-Spanish and half-indio, while Anne was a regular "barrio lass" (therefore not tisay).
Putting Jericho together with Anne and Anne looking more like a member of the mestizaje than Jericho can confuse the audience since it is Anne who is supposed to be the "Pinoy" while Jericho is supposed to be the Spanish-Indio half-breed. In fairness to Anne, her features are "not too tisay" and I believe that given the right tan and hair dye, she would have passed off as a regular barrio lass.
If the film Gandhi was able to make Ben Kingsley (who is part Indian, but is light-skinned) tan to the point of being convincing, then the same could have been done with Anne. A little tanning (plus the appropriate make-up) and hair dye (black) could have made her more convincing as a barrio lass, especially if juxtaposed against Jericho's character. Likewise Jericho's hair should have been dyed to a lighter hue, and his face applied with lightening foundation or make-up to make him appear more "Tisoy" especially since he was juxtaposed against naturally tisay Anne Curtis.
Jericho's Spanish was relatively good and it sounded like the Spanish that a competent Filipino speaker of Spanish (not necessarily a Spaniard) would have spoken at that time. And that's where it becomes really funny: Jericho's footsoldier character spoke even better Spanish than the "Spanish" officers, whose Spanish totally sucked.
Baron Geisler was totally miscast in the role. He doesn't look Spanish at all, and instead looks more like a Uighur and from afar even looked Japanese. A friend mentioned that in the uniform Baron wore, he looked like he was in the Kempeitai! Worse, Baron's Spanish accent TOTALLY SUCKED.
The same could be said of Ryan Eigenmann's character's Spanish. It appears that the production crew didn't think that getting the members of the cast who played Spaniards to pronounce their Spanish phrases with perfect Castilian accents was an important part of achieving authenticity.
(So far, the Jose Rizal film which starred Cesar Montano set the bar for all period films in terms of accuracy, attention to detail, and accent delivery.)
It shouldn't have made a major dent on the budget to get the Spanish-speaking cast to get hold of a copy of Pimsleur's Basic Spanish cassettes or CD's as well as get them a copy of "Los Ultimos de Filipinas" (the first film about the Siege of Baler) in order to get them used to hearing what real Spanish sounds like, and eventually getting them to sound like real Spaniards.
One blatant mistake was when one "soldier" asked for "uno beso", but in real Spanish, you say "un beso."
I personally cannot blame Viva Films for not being able to cast real Spaniards to play the Spanish roles, and instead used Mestizo Pinoy actors (there seemed to have been an American in the mix too whose Spanish sucked bigtime), because perhaps budget was a major concern. But had the director actually insisted upon ACCENT ACCURACY so that all the "Spaniards" in the cast would have sounded authentic, the "Spanish" soldiers might have at least been more convincing. As it is, it is easy to subliminally convince an audience about a character's nationality when an authentic accent is presented.
Frankly speaking, the ones who played Spanish soldiers might have very well been Katipuneros because back in those days, Spanish was the language of learning in the Philippines, and even Katipunero Indios would have spoken it, though perhaps the less educated ones would have spoken it with the same accent that the actors who played Spaniards would have used.
Again, this makes it confusing for audience when the unacceptably lousy Spanish used by the "Spanish" officers is put up against to the relatively decent-sounding Spanish delivered by Jericho's character. Jericho's character's Spanish, would have sounded just right because his Spanish sounded well-pronounced albeit with a tinge of a Pinoy accent in it which is acceptable as Jericho's character Celso was supposed to have been born and bred in the Philippines.
Hey you! The one who said Baler sucks and said "Viva España".Could you do me a favor and check the site Business World Online and look for me the awards that Baler received? And how pathetic of you to say "Viva España" when they lost in the movie.Oh..I sympathize you. You can't accept that your beloved Spain is beaten by the Katipuneros when your soldiers are SISSY!
The authenticity of the film in terms of production design and cast appearance was really questionable.
First: The church looks really like an unfinished barn house especially the roof.
Two: The Soldiers were trapped inside with no minimum amount of food they should really look miserable. The representation of miserable was portrayed in the outfits not physically. The soldiers uniform was torn little by little but If you look jao mapa and Baron before they were trapped inside both of them gained more weight in the middle of the film. And the hair growth and shaving was not even considered. A year of less haircut and shaving would really make a person look bum.
The script writing and transition of events was handled beautifully although Spanish accent was evidently not considered as a High priority.
But on a not so techie perspective, the film is great.
All in all 3 out of 5 stars
Stupid movie.
Reasons:
1. The depiction of such a siege makes the game of cat and mouse look brutal.
2. The leading lady looks more spanish than her leading man.
3. The leading lady looks so white and sheltred in contary to a hard-working daughter who lives in the province DURING THAT TIMES.
4. Weak acting. Any audience in their right mind (which a lot of pinoys are not currently in) would observe a total disconnect from the passion of losing someone you love.
5. The person who cites the number of awards (which makes Baler "awesome") does not know the nature of Filipino movies: done in a bad taste and always hyped to supernatural levels. Can you tell me which Filipino garnered critical acclaim from other internation critics? Himala is the only one - Three DECADES ago.
6. Weak plot.
But with such production effort, I am giving it 3/5 for the Filipino quality of making movies. It is a diversion from the nonsensical dramatic or comical crap they produce time and again.
Hollywood level = 2/10.
Cheers.
@Anonymous:
If you do put the film's production values against Hollywood's, I'm not sure if Baler would move the meter. :P
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