Pepe, bakit palagi na lang tayong sawi?
(Pepe, why are we always so wretched)
—Paciano
THERE is a new subversive document in town: it is a film about Paciano Rizal, the brother of Jose, the national hero.
In elementary up to college, we memorize the name of Paciano alongside those of Jose’s sisters. That’s it. We do not care about him because Paciano did not write any outstanding documents. He did not perform any strong deeds to further the Revolution. He became a Katipunero but, in the narrative of teachers and historians as well, Paciano never reached the dizzying heights that his younger brother reached.
No film has ever been made around him. In the many films about Jose Rizal, Paciano’s presence came in the form of walk-on roles. He was a nonentity in the saga of Jose. He was what you might call the funding agency behind the grand project called “Jose Rizal.”
It is the tragedy of Paciano that he had a brother who was not only larger than life, but one who threatened to overshadow the history of the period to which he was born. It is the greater tragedy—and the supreme sarcasm—that Paciano did not die in the drama of a de facto martyr. It is the greatest tragic truth that Paciano never really became a hero.
It is, however, also because of the fact that Paciano never reached for the stars and all the stars were to him unreachable that he lived on grounded, those two legs planted firmly on the ground, the head swirling with the questions for his dear brother.
This is the obscure personality that is at the center of the cinema of Chuck Gutierrez, called Heneral Rizal. It is a film that is at once raging and surrendering: Paciano is angry from start to finish, his perpetual tears an emotional resignation to his footnote of a presence in the life of a brother who got declared the hero of the nation. In the person of Paciano are more questions than answers that the lead character gets to ask. The true-red Rizalista may shiver at the thoughts of how this film, by way of the lead character, dares to grill the national country of this republic. As if “disrespecting” the hero is not enough, the questions posited are for Rizal to reply to even as these questions are about Rizal the person.
But Gutierrez is not only subversive—in the sense of providing a reading of histories that we are not used to—he is also a debunker of myths and the apocryphal in our heroes’ saga. More exciting is the fact that beyond myths, Gutierrez happily shatters the traditions we have built around our national heroes, of which Rizal occupies the topmost tier of the pantheon.
Through the lens of Gutierrez, Paciano is resurrected to question the heroism of his own brother. Much as Paciano loved Jose or Pepe, it is clear that Paciano has more intelligent and sobering questions that make all the other heroes of the nation look puny and irrelevant. The problem with—or the advantage of—the doubts of Paciano regarding Pepe’s desire to die for the country is that these are our doubts and our humorless take on any kind of hero at all.
Who among the Filipino historians would ever accuse Jose Rizal of hubris? No one. But Paciano, in the pen of Floro Quibuyen, sees a giant ego in our heroes, including Gomburza. The judgment about the ideological narcissism of heroes—from Del Pilar to Antonio Luna and other personalities—is actually the same decision we make with regard to all those who had supposedly died for our country. Every time we hear the rant of Paciano, we know it is our own rant, our own cry for the inutility of those who tried to save this nation.
As of now, I am caught up in the discourse of this film about the other Rizal. It is, of course, a disservice to talk of a film about Paciano by ignoring the cinematic aspect of this film.
Footages from film archives and photographs, some of them animated, introduce us to the story of Heneral Paciano. Old photos lead us to the old story. A voice floats over these images; it is a sad voice, a valediction from Paciano who is not ready to die without resolving the conflicts formed by the selfishness of heroes, including Rizal. A man, his back to the camera, enters the frame. Without any introduction, we react to the stimuli of this man in black with a hat. He is Rizal. We know this is Rizal because, unlike Paciano, the heroism of Rizal has brought him honors in terms of being remembered.
But Paciano has a moral ascendancy—we don’t—to ask what happened to the thoughts that Rizal learned in Europe. Is it enough that flowers are being offered on the day of his birth and on the day of his death? Is he happy being on a box of matches, or on a two-peso bill? In the meantime, we see Rizal gazing up at his own likeness atop a pedestal made of cement or granite.
At the center of this magisterial film is Nanding Josef in his role of a lifetime. He is the sole talking head in this reluctant documentary—teary-eyed, disappointed, betrayed. As Paciano, Josef bares himself through a face that is weathered but not vanquished. He is relentless. He is not the brother narrators and storytellers of the legend of the national hero love to paint as timid and apolitical. Josef portrays Paciano as that passive-aggressive kin who has resolved to get to the bottom of things. Josef’s Paciano demands for an accounting of deeds and a display of solid material accomplishments. He calls on Pepe.
A cinematography with the sweep of a big film from Dexter de la Peña cannot be ignored. In one scene, he shows us a new, magisterial landscape of demonstrators ignoring a virus and the violence of an oppressive administration. The music of Emerzon Texon alternates between the folksy, martial and hymnal, most of the time brooding and haunting.
An accomplished editor, Chuck Gutierrez outdoes himself both as a film director and as a political animal in this film. He has become, with due respect to his political stand, an activist. His Rizal, summoned from dead, dull and boring histories by Paciano, walks against the crowd of demonstrators, removes his thick suit, turns around, and joins the angry protestors. If this is Rizal, then he is my hero.
Heneral Rizal is produced by Tanghalang Pilipino in cooperation with Voyage Studios.