Go watch ‘Bonifacio’ to encourage film producers

The good news from the Metro Manila Film Festival is that “Bonifacio” won nine awards, including Best Picture. But the best news is that such potboilers as “Feng Shui 2,” “The Amazing Praybeyt Benjamin,” and “Shake, Rattle and Roll XV” did not win any. (“Buti nga.”) For many years already, new versions of the latter horror flick have been insulting MMFF moviegoers.

A film festival is supposed to show outstanding movies. The MMFF was started to improve Philippine movies by giving awards to outstanding films, but it has not been able to do that. The MMFF has ceased to be a contest for best film achievement but a contest for the top box office grossers.

As big a story as the award winners are which pictures earned the most at the box office.

And the sad news is that the leaders in the box office are the trash movies. The good ones like “Bonifacio” are lagging behind. “Bonifacio” star Robin Padilla said the film has earned only P10 million as of last Sunday. It cost P250 million to make. How can we encourage producers to make better movies with such a poor return on investment? Let us hope that after winning nine awards, the movie would be something people would go to see. We should support movies like it, not the trash movies.

In spite of years of the MMFF, the big studios have not been able to produce good movies. They have been content to produce movies mainly for the box office. It is the small independent producers who have been turning out outstanding films. Maybe the MMFF should concentrate on the independent producers, not the big studios.

Many entries of the big studios to the MMFF should not even be admitted to the festival, but for many years its organizers and judges have been qualifying trash movies. Entries of the big studios are sure to be qualified even if they are insults to the intelligence of moviegoers.

For years, horror flicks, romantic comedies, and fantasy movies were the common fare of the MMFF. Thought-provoking movies like “Bonifacio” were few. Last year, the film about Emilio Aguinaldo, “El Presidente,” won best picture, if I am not mistaken.

These two movies should be viewed one after the other because they present opposite views of history. “El Presidente” shows Aguinaldo as the hero and Bonifacio as the villain. “Bonifacio” shows it the other way.

 “El Presidente” portrays Bonifacio as a traitor and a threat to the new independent republic; that is why Aguinaldo ordered  him executed. “Bonifacio” shows him as a martyr, the founder and Supremo of the Katipunan who launched the Philippine Revolution of 1896, but became a victim of revolutionary politics. He was another example of the saying that “revolutions eat their own sons.”

Eddie Garcia as the museum curator contradicts the “traitor” accusation by telling the students: “Ganyan ba ang traidor?  Binigay nya ang buhay sa bayan?” (Is that a traitor? He gave his life for his country.)

The movie also says that Bonifacio is the first president of the Philippines, not Aguinaldo.

And that is the point of “Bonifacio.” It wants the younger generation not to believe entirely the history textbooks but to look deeper into history and judge for themselves. That is why the movie is told on two levels: the present and the past.

In the present level, students discuss Philippine history in class and go to the Bonifacio shrine to look at relics. Then the movie shifts to the revolutionary days, then back to the present, and then back to the past again. This breaks up the narrative about Bonifacio and the Katipunan and sometimes irritates moviegoers. But the movie wants to entice the young students to be interested in history and to look further into the politics and conflicts of revolutionary Philippines.

That is why Daniel Padilla, Robin’s nephew and the heartthrob of teenagers, is cast in the movie. Although he does nothing but look at Bonifacio relics, Daniel is supposed to attract the young crowd simply by his presence in the movie.

There is a bit of nepotism in the latest MMFF entries, too. Besides Robin and Daniel in “Bonifacio,”  Rommel Padilla, Robin’s brother and Daniel’s father, appears in a cameo role. He was executed by the Spaniards. (Manila Vice Mayor Isko Moreno—already an actor before he entered politics—also has a cameo role.)

“Feng Shui 2” was produced by Kris Aquino and features her son Bimby. The only person missing there is Boy Abunda.

Another sad piece of news is that “Kubot: the Aswang Chronicles” won third best picture when it should not even have been included in the MMFF. What’s wrong with the MMFF organizers and judges?

But looking at the bright side, maybe the victory of “Bonifacio,” and “El Presidente” before it, would encourage producers to make more movies on Philippine history and its heroes. Already, a movie about General Antonio Luna is being made. And the producers of “Bonifacio” announced that a bioflick of Gen. Gregorio del Pilar would be its MMFF entry next  year. Good choices. These two heroes had lives that are dramatic and cinematic.

May I suggest movies on Generals Macario Sakay and Miguel Malvar, the last Filipino generals to surrender to the Americans. They had cinematic adventures, too.