There is a great movie somewhere within “Baler,” but for some inexplicable reason, it somehow refuses to show itself.

True, “Baler” has just been named best movie in the Metro Manila Film Festival, and indeed the paeans issued on its behalf prove true: the cinematography is dazzling, the scenery memorable, and there are moments of compelling acting. It also tells a story that is of historical significance, and full of human interest. But somehow all these pluses don’t add up to the movie they deserve to be. What we get is a well-made film, clean and serviceable, but one which only fleetingly rises to its potential.

Other critics point to a central flaw in the movie’s structure: it doesn’t know whether it’s a love story between the daughter of an “insurrecto” [rebel] and a “mestizo” [Spanish-Filipino] soldier fighting on the Spanish side, or a dramatization of a fascinating chapter in the Philippine Revolution against Spain.

I happen to believe it is possible to have the two narrative lines running parallel and still come up with a great film. Indeed, most historical movies tell their stories by focusing on a personal story, often a love story, set against the sweep and grandeur of bigger events. What inevitably dooms “Baler’s” ambitions is not that it has one too many stories to tell, but that it doesn’t tell enough of both.

Part of the problem is that the historical event at the center of the film is difficult to tell entertainingly. The siege of Baler dragged on for almost a year, with Spanish troops holed up inside a church while the native revolutionaries watched and waited outside. It is difficult to sustain interest when most of the action consists of Spanish soldiers slumped on the church floor and only periodically stirring themselves to look out the church windows and fire a few desultory shots.

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Given such a dreary historical event around which events are to revolve, it would be expected to have the filmmakers devote more time and depict with more fervor the love story between the soldier and the town lass.

I couldn’t help but notice the rather bizarre miscasting of the two leads: Anne Curtis, who is half-Australian and thus quite fair and fine-featured, portrays a peasant girl raised on the farm; while Jericho Rosales, whose features are quite decidedly Filipino, is a half-Spanish mestizo who speaks (and writes) in poetic Filipino. But even if we were to willingly suspend disbelief, it is still difficult to get swept up in the romance they share. And it isn’t because the two don’t have chemistry. I thought the pairing rather inspired (if only their roles had been reversed), their attractive features quite a study in contrasts.

The problem is that the two lovers and the strength of their bond are not sufficiently explored. We see them walking on the seashore, holding hands, kissing—but we don’t fully grasp how and why they fell in love, and how deep their passion runs. Perhaps instead of one more desultory scene of the Spaniards holed up in the church, director Mark Meily could have filled in the emotional gaps instead.

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There are hints of the social milieu that underscored the Revolution: the contempt with which Spaniards held the “indios” [natives], the boiling resentment of the natives against centuries of Spanish abuse, the political machinations ensnaring the leaders of the local uprisings. But these get much too brief treatments, when I felt they deserved greater focus.

The lovers, I thought, could have been ideal vehicles to articulate the social context. The two could have been shown debating the issues that kept pushing them apart. It wasn’t just Phillip Salvador’s (who played Curtis’ father) orneriness that separated them, after all. They both represented two sides of a cultural and social divide, and they should have had strong feelings about such matters. The heat and ardor of their discussions could only have helped build up the passion so lacking in the depiction of their love that was supposed to be so powerful it defied a revolution.

Indeed, one problem I sensed was the filmmakers’ hesitation to paint both sides in bolder colors. The siege of Baler has been touted as an incident illustrating the “gallantry” of both Spanish and Filipino sides, and we’ve really had enough of the clichéd treatment of Spanish colonizers as evil incarnate. Still, it wouldn’t have hurt if the movie had taken sides. It would have given the director focus, for one.

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Still, despite these quibbles, “Baler” deserves all the support moviegoers can give it. Whatever observations were made here was only by way of examining how the film as it turned out failed to live up to the promise of its premise.

There are still a hundred untold true stories about the Revolution against Spain as well as the Filipino-American War. Telling these in an entertaining way is one way of teaching us about our past, or even just sparking public interest in and pride for our heritage. The producers are to be commended for believing enough in the project to push through with the movie. Making a period movie is risky at best, but to dare imagine it could prevail against commercial formulas in a festival obsessed with box-office receipts is heroic, indeed.

And so, as far as historical movies go, “Baler” is a good beginning. Hopefully, other producers of later works would not be so preoccupied with political correctness or historical courtesies. Hopefully, we can find the balance between impassioned storytelling and fidelity to the historical record. Hopefully, we will be treated to movies that can match their soaring ambitions with clarity of their narrative line. We might yet get to view the great movie that “Baler” promised.