Sumilang, Romanoff Aldrich Jose P. #43
3 BIO – 3 10/9/11
Bayaning Third World: Reaction Paper
The movie begins with two filmmakers, Ricky Davao and Cris Villanueva, who are planning to make a movie on Rizal. Their dilemma begins with the question “what about Rizal?” because numerous movies about Rizal’s life have already been made. They tried to view Rizal’s life from different angles including: Rizal being a hero or traitor due to his absence of support to the revolution, Rizal as a romantic, and other aspects of Rizal’s personal life.
The two filmmakers end up revolving around the greatest controversy of Rizal’s life: the Retraction Controversy. The Retraction Controversy is about whether or not Rizal wrote and signed a document that he takes back and apologizes for all his attacks against the Church. Little do they know that as they probe the topic deeper, other sub-controversies will be uncovered.
They start with the question: “Was the signed document, believed to be Rizal’s retraction document, real or fake?” Some say yes, some say no. For me, Rizal has always had his iron-will, incapable of bending or changing course. He was smart enough to know that there was no salvation in a church run by devils, and that is why he has denounced the church. I do not believe that he fell desperate into believing that eternal salvation could only be achieved by his cowardly retraction and acceptance of the improper teachings of the church of his time.
The filmmakers study the subject deeper by “interviewing” people who knew Rizal very well. The first interview was the interview with Doña Teodora. Doña Teodora said that the filmmaker was very lucky to have been born in a time of openness and acceptance, and that in their time plane the friars dictated and controlled everything around them. The filmmaker asked Doña Teodora if she believed Rizal did retract to his old faith, she simply said that her son had died...
