‘Amigo’

In his opening remarks at the premiere, Joel Torre said he understood that they were up against daunting odds. Here they were, a small and independent movie, surrounded by blockbusters like “Transformers” and “Temptation Island.” Who knew? he said, maybe with luck and your patronage, they could defend their own space, they could hold their own.

I most certainly hope so. Not for their sake but for our own.

The movie Torre was referring to is “Amigo,” written and directed by John Sayles, featuring a cast of American and Filipino actors. The movie deals with a “forgotten war,” the war between Filipinos and Americans at the turn of the 20th century. Either it has been forgotten or it has been buried in mounds of ideological debris. Which makes the title richly ironic. In the end, it doesn’t draw attention to the Filipinos—“Amigo” (Friend) Torre’s character proclaims to the invading American troops a need to survive—it draws attention to the Americans. America is amigo, this country’s friend. Or is it?

But Sayles is not a polemicist, he is a storyteller. As is his wont, he doesn’t go for broad historical sweep with “Amigo,” he goes for the small slice-of-life (or death) one. But it’s a grain of sand that holds a universe, offering glimpses of a bigger reality, a vaster scheme of things.

“Amigo” tells of a barrio in Luzon that is seized by the Americans during the war. Its cabeza, Rafael (Torre), does his best to keep himself, his family and his community alive amid the competing, or violently conflicting, demands of the Americans and the revolutionaries. His own son and brother are members of the Revolution. He manages well at first, the occupying troops being a bunch of youthful conscripts led by a lieutenant who doesn’t know what he is doing there himself. He used to be a builder, not a soldier, or a destroyer. So he attempts to build, if not new structures at least new alliances, new friendships. Rafael is only too glad to cooperate.

Their détente runs up against an intensified American effort to capture Aguinaldo or crush the resistance, whichever comes first. Can they hold their own? Is there space for humanity and decency in this clash of will, or arms? I’ll leave it at that.

“Amigo” doesn’t go into the American motivation for the war, it doesn’t even go into whether it is really a war or just naked seizure. It doesn’t make judgments, it merely asks questions. Subtly, slyly. Not least why you should want to occupy a people who are quite able to get by without you. The village has its own ways of doing things, it has its own ways of governing itself. It is by no means perfect or idyllic. Most of the lands belong to the cabeza or to the Church, which has croppers tilling it. The people are steeped in religious obscurantism, love to gossip and intrigue against each other, and are given to drink and cockfights. But they also manage to be neighborly, aided in no small way by a cabeza who proposes reasonable compromises, if not Solomonic decisions. It is this world the Americans break into, and tear apart.

Makes you wonder about the meaning of democracy. Or indeed, as the soldiers sing while marching on, about the wisdom of civilizing monkeys with a krag.

But “Amigo” is not just about ideas, it is also, and far more so, about people. It is about the cabeza, his family, and the community that depends on him. It is about the Americans who, like their own flag, come in different stripes and stars. It is about the Katipuneros, who come from different pasts and dream of different futures. It is about the friars, the Chinese coolies, the gods and generals who hover around them, the barely seen but very palpable forces in their lives.

So many characters and so little time to flesh them out must also take its toll. If there is anything to quibble about in the movie, it is probably that. Sayles is a deft writer and manages to invest his characters with strong individualizing traits. But not always enough to lose yourself in them completely amid their joys and fears, triumph and tragedy. There is a wisp of a love story here, but one that remains just that, a wisp.

What is noteworthy though is the human face Sayles is able to give the conflicting sides, people who are caught up in a war not of their making, or willing. What is gratifying are the nuances he is able to give a history that has always been simplified, that has always been painted in black and white. These are people, not representations of ideas. This is a story, not a statement.

In his own intro, Sayles said he hoped “Amigo” would do two things. One is to make people discover a past they have forgotten, and the other is to make the world discover a present it has ignored. That present consisting specifically of wonderfully gifted Filipino actors whose names should even now be resounding across the world.

I share that hope fervently. This is fine ensemble acting, and a good deal of the credit for it belongs to the Filipino cast. The names are a who’s who of the country’s luminous lights, and the newcomers deserve their place among them: Joel Torre, Rio Locsin, Ronnie Lazaro, Bembol Roco, John Arcilla, Pen Medina, Spanky Manikan, Bodjie Pascua, Jemi Paretas, Irma Adlawan. “Amigo” proves magnificently that their reputations are not undeserved. Truly, you hope this movie will open whole new audiences for them, whole new worlds to conquer.

When “Amigo” opens, it will have to fight for survival amid the contending forces of local movies like “Temptation Island” with their easy allures, and the invading horde of Hollywood fare like “Transformers,” with their violent seductions. Will it be able to defend its space? Will it be able to hold its own?

That’s an ending that lies entirely in your hands.