A Cinema Artist Philippines production. Produced by Mike de Leon. Directed by Mike de Leon. Reviewed on videocassette, L.A., Nov 2, 2002 (In Vancouver Film Festival - Dragons & Tigers) Running Time: 93 min.
By Scott Foundas
Who was Jose Rizal? Hero? Coward? Traitor? Revolutionary? Perhaps a combination of these things? Such questions are teasingly posed, but never quite answered by Mike de Leon's "3rd World Hero," despite the many dramatized scenes from Rizal's life that give pic at least the outward appearance of a conventional screen biography. But it is the suggestion of this most playful and jaunty of biopics that such questions may lie beyond cinema's ability to answer. Made three years ago, but only just now receiving its North American premiere, this smart, stylish deconstruction merits the attention of fest programmers to look past the 1999 copyright date.
Controversial for the strong secular and democratic opinions expressed in his novels at a time when the Philippines was under the colonial rule of Catholic Spain, Rizal was executed by a Spanish firing squad in 1896, only to subsequently be invoked as a revolutionary martyr and the official national hero of the Philippines. But there are many conflicting accounts of Rizal's final days, months and years.
De Leon's way into story tells the tale of two contemporary filmmakers attempting a project about Rizal, and running aground at every turn as they search for a compromise between truth and legend. That Rizal's life isn't "cinematic" enough is a constant refrain; there is even mention of a silent film that documented his execution, but omitted any further details from his life for fear of boring the audience.
Certainly, boredom in one thing no one can accuse of de Leon and his co-screenwriter, Clodualdo del Mundo Jr., who have fashioned a movie alive with ideas and imagination. Pic jumps back and forth in time, with the filmakers (Ricky Davao and Chris Villanueva) interviewing Rizal's sister Trining (Rio Locsin), brother Paciano (Jonee Gamboa) and Irish wife Josephine (Lara Fabregas), trying to set straight the facts of Rizal's life and death, trying to determine the shape the film will take. Did Rizal, for example, actually retracts the views expressed in his novels so as to be forgiven by the Church? If so, was this only so he could marry Josephine? Or was Josephine herself merely a golddigger who didn't love Rizal nearly as much as she loved his celebrity?
The versions of events don't quite gel, because everyone who had a vested interest in Rizal's life now has a vested interest in his legacy. Like George Hickenlooper's "The Man from Elysian Fields," "3rd World Hero" is slyly aware of the fact that when an artist dies, he doesn't really die. And things, become no less complicated when the filmmakers finally confront Rizal himself (well-played by Joel Torre).
De Leon's touch is light and lilting, and 3rd World Hero builds a fantastic energy as it swoops from one fragmented clue to the next on its serpentine quest for elusive - and potentially non-extant - truth. Pic is atmosperically lensed in black-and-white by Ding Achacoso, with crack editing by Armando Jarlego.