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Review: Amigo (2010) @ the London Film Festival

Posted by Alex Ramon at Monday, October 18, 2010



There are few filmmakers whose next movie I look forward to more than John Sayles, and no film I was happier to see on the London Film Festival programme than the director’s new work, Amigo. Sayles’s last film, Honeydripper, was a late addition to the LFF in 2007 where it received a rapturous reception that, unfortunately, didn’t translate into the box office performance the movie clearly deserved. For all of its astute analysis of racial politics in the Deep South, Honeydripper felt like a somewhat lighter work for Sayles, building to a memorable feel-good climax that the movie really earned.



Amigo, in contrast, seems a tougher proposition. Inspired by research that Sayles undertook for his Cuba-set novel Los Gusanos (1991), the new film takes as its subject the US’s next “adventure” after Cuba, anatomising tensions between Filipinos, Americans and Spanish during the Philippines-American War at the turn of the century. The Philippines were a Spanish colony from 1565, but Spanish neglect and refusal to grant political rights resulted in an increasing number of uprisings against colonial rule, culminating in the revolution of 1896-1898, which led to the proclamation of the first Republic by President Aguinaldo. Aguinaldo accepted help from the US against the Spanish, with American assurances of independence. However, after the Peace Treaty of Paris, the country was claimed and occupied by the US.



Sayles’s movie begins after the Spanish defeat and focuses on a village in Luzon in which American troops have established a garrison. The “head man” of the village Rafael (Joel Torre) and his wife find themselves working the land again, while their son flees to join his uncle who’s fighting with the guerrillas. The thoughtful American Lt. Compton (Garrett Dillahunt) tries to hold to his image of his side as democracy-spreading liberators. A Spanish priest, Padre Hidalgo (Yul Vazquez), is released from captivity to provide (often dubious) translations between the two sides. Chinese workers, digging shit-holes, find themselves targeted by the guerrillas, while the young American soldiers variously drink, hurl insults, make tentative connections, and begin to wonder what they’re doing in the country.



As ever, Sayles proves adept at locating the macrocosm in the microcosm in Amigo. I can think of few films that have better conveyed the intricacies of occupation from so many perspectives: those of the occupied, those of the occupiers and those caught in between. The tensions between these individuals (and in Sayles movies the characters really are individuals, not mere representatives of particular groups or factions) emerge in sharply written and beautifully acted scenes that chart the dailiness, the minutiae of occupation as compellingly as its more overt brutality. Parallels with more contemporary American “interventions” (Vietnam, Iraq) are inevitable - especially when the uncompromising General Hardacre (Sayles veteran Chris Cooper in what be termed the ‘Kris Kristofferson role’) announces that “We’re supposed to be winning hearts and minds here” - but they’re not hammered home. What Sayles achieves, as often, is a stimulating complexity and breadth. Notwithstanding a couple of awkward touches (notably a late skirmish that’s rather crudely inter-cut with a cock-fight), the pace and tone seem just right, and the movie is strikingly shot by Lee Briones-Meily. As good as Sayles’s dialogue always is (and the status of language during an occupation is one of the movie’s major concerns), Amigo proves equally eloquent in wordless scenes: soldiers struggling through the terrain, buffalo immersed in water, monsoon rain finally easing, a boy defiantly banging a bell.



Amigo, then, is possessed of all the Sayles virtues: intelligence, wit, sensitivity, soul, intimate focus and epic scope, with gripping personal stories leading into wider social and political areas. It’s value also lies in the fact that it's a  cinematic representation of a “forgotten war” which, according to Sayles, has had only one US film made about it, a 1939 Gunga Din knock-off entitled The Real Glory, which featured no Filipinos among the cast. “One thing a film can do is revisit official history and ask ‘Is that the whole story?’” said the director in the Q&A that followed yesterday’s screening. With Amigo, Sayles continues to interrogate the elisions and generalisations of the official version, producing yet another rich, absorbing, and deeply rewarding film as a result.

Best so far

I think yesterday's screening- Sunday 3:30pm at NFT 2- was the best AMIGO screening so far. The theater was packed and I did the intro because John was off doing press at the Directors Tea. That was fun for me since I know John's rap by now. Our respectful hosts tend to use words like "sadly" and "tragic" and I like to lift the tone with words like "sunshine" and "beautiful". With this movie, it's all about context.

When we returned for the Q+A, almost nobody left and the questions were the best ever.
A Filipino guy named Riley (he's from Cebu!) stood and spoke, warmly endorsing AMIGO and in a pretty long exchange with John,  told the audience a lot about the neglected history of the Philipppines from a Filipino's point-of-view.

It's so important for us with AMIGO to hear from Filipinos because Filipinos understand AMIGO like no one else. Thanks, Riley, for standing up (it's not easy!) in a crowd. Write to us on this blog or on Amigo Facebook, will you? I'd like more people to hear what you have to say about AMIGO.
Thank you, BFI/LFF, from John, me, and AMIGO.

Ya-hoo! US Premiere of AMIGO

Come see AMIGO in LA, first screening in our home country. Usually by this time our friends have sat through many versions of our movie, in screeening rooms in New York or LA, or just in our garage/editing room. This time we cut the whole thing far away from our home base, in a house by the sea on the island of Bohol, and our US friends have been bugging me:"when are we going to see the Philippine movie?"

NOVEMBER 6, SATURDAY, 9:45pm, GRAUMAN'S CHINESE THEATER

Free tickets will be available to AFI members on October 27 at noon and to the
general public on October 28 at noon. This year festival-goers also will have access
to a limited number of last-minute tickets at AFI.com/AFIFEST the day before the
screening or at the festival box office the day of the screening. Rush Lines will begin
forming one hour before the scheduled screening start times.

The AFI FEST box office is open online at AFI.com/AFIFEST and via telephone at
1.888.AFI FEST. The box office is also on-site at the Hollywood & Highland Center in
Hollywood

Book now to avoid disappointment.
Off to London, Maggie

Making of Amigo October 12 on AMC

John Sayles, the prolific independent American director and screenwriter, has made literally dozens of films that have taken him to film festivals around the globe for decades. His entry at the Toronto International Film Festival this year was Amigo, a film set during the Philippine-American War. Sayles talked with me about how he shot the film under budget and time constraints, using a largely local Filipino crew.

Watch the attached video below to see a clip from my interview with Sayles. For more on the journey he and three of his fellow filmmakers took at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, tune in Tue., Oct. 12, at 11PM | 10C, to watch the AMC News documentary Committed, directed by Morgan Spurlock and executive produced by Spurlock and yours truly.

http://blogs.amctv.com/movie-news/2010/10/video-committed-john-sayles.php

Us at San Sebastian International Film Festival/Donostia Zinemaldia

This is the portrait taken each Festival, on the waterfront behind the Kursaal, which is the main theater. Aren't we a nice group? John, Joel, me, and Jemi. We had a good time.

The Campaign

That's how John sees it: we are campaigning for AMIGO as we go around the world. TIFF was the first stop on the campaign, and then San Sebastian/Donostia.
No rubber chicken. Lots of handshakes. Kisses on both cheeks. At least twice a day delicious pintxos which is how you say tapas in Basque country.
Lots of fun with actors Jemi and Joel.
Votes of confidence from many, many fans.
Photos to follow from the campaign trail.

Hearts and Minds

We've been hearing from people who are suprised by the contemporary language of Amigo and parallels are easily drawn to other US military engagements.  We asked our crack team to trace the concept of "hearts and minds" which John encountered in his copious research for his novel "A Moment in the Sun". Here are their findings:

HEARTS AND MINDS - "The knack of turning a phrase was explained by Theodore Roosevelt to his young aide, Lieutenant Douglas MacArthur, in 1906. MacArthur had asked the President to what he attributed his popularity, and Roosevelt replied, 'To put into words what is in their hearts and minds but not in their mouths.' ('Hearts and minds' later became a slogan of sorts, as what had to be won in Vietnam." From a section on slogans in "Safire's New Political Dictionary" by William Safire (Random House, New York, 1993). 

And from another reference: "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." The Bible, Authorized Version, 1611: Phillippians, Chapter 4, Verse 7. From " The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations," Fifth Edition, edited by Elizabeth Knowles (Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2001)

[source: http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/20/messages/396.html ]
 

Another reference says, "A reader sent columnist William Safire antecedents from the Bible, a letter John Adams wrote in 1818, and a conversation Teddy Roosevelt had with Douglas MacArthur. Reporters and military officers in Vietnam labeled the 'winning hearts and minds' approach 'WHAM.' The Green Berets had their own version: 'Get them by the balls, and their hearts and minds will follow.'" "Quote Verifier: Who said What, Where, and When" by Ralph Keyes (St. Martin's Press, New York, 2006) Page 236.
[source: http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/60/messages/258.html ]


And this reference regarding John Adams: "The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations." So wrote John Adams, looking back on the American Revolution from the perspective of 1818. The date when the revolution of hearts and minds began was Jan. 30, 1750, and the leader of the incipient revolt was Jonathan Mayhew, the minister who preached what was perhaps the most important sermon in American history.
[source: http://www.libertyunbound.com/archive/2006_11/kopel-catechism.html ]