Friday, October 24, 2025

A short, short review





photo from Rappler

I COULD research a flaw (or rumored flaw) in Leni Robredo's personality, then make a movie out of that. I could then end up hyping up, like a troll, the flaw or flaws (or rumored or speculated flaws) I uncovered in that research, couldn't I? All in the name of a "she's just human" supposed narrative statement, since I've always claimed to love her politics. End up, I said, because that film could actually drown out all the things she fought for during her presidential campaign, against all the odds (read: the entire anti-open government plutocracy and their friend, kleptocracy). Couldn't it? . . . Now, aside from the difference in their stature, Robredo is far from being a Manuel L. Quezon, and vice versa, as far as we know, and Quezon and Robredo belong to two different times in history with very different problems. I only pulled out that example with her in the above paragraph to present an argument, with which I would now want to ask this: did Quezon the film end up being an anti-left of center propaganda film that effectively trivialized Quezon's and Osmeña's nationalism against all odds (the Americans' reluctance) as well as put in the shadows the former's (progressive) policy struggles against the landlords and industrial plutocrats of his time? All in the name of putting a "focus" on a he-was-just-human supposed cinematic statement, with no intention of making it come out like a right-wing black propaganda film produced by an Ortigas and a Rocha.

(IN hindsight, did Heneral Luna the movie help make Rodrigo Duterte's "put Tang in a" glass-shattering curses come out as no more than just charming? And, looking forward, will Quezon's supposed treatment of Osmeña, as hyped up in the film, aid Sara Duterte's communication struggle against the Luzonians of our time?)


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