‘Ang Hapis at Himagsik ni Hermano Puli’ review: Colorless history

Oggs Cruz

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‘Ang Hapis at Himagsik ni Hermano Puli’ review: Colorless history
''Hermano Puli' is as colorless as an afternoon with a droning history teacher,' writes movie critic Oggs Cruz of the movie starring Aljur Abrenica

Gil Portes’ Ang Hapis at Himagsik ni Hermano Puli is a film that is not wanting in good intentions. 

In fact, it is bursting with it, with that singular, stubborn, but admittedly good intention of raising awareness about a footnote of Philippine history. It is drowning in nothing else but the agenda of lionizing an obscure revolutionary hero, of putting Quezon-native Hermano Puli, who supposedly fought the Spaniards in the name of religious freedom, on a pedestal.

Capitalizing goodwill

Photo courtesy of T-Rex Productions

Hermano Puli imagines itself to be epic in scope. All of its actors and actresses don era-specific clothes and converse with each other in flowery Tagalog with frequent bursts of sloppy Spanish. The film features battles too, dully executed by Portes, but still complete with pistols bursting, swords swinging, blood pouring, and even heads rolling. 

It seems that Portes mistakenly took Heneral Luna’s success as something that is owed to its being a historically accurate costume spectacle, a film that was able to seamlessly transport its viewers to a distant but relevant past. However, there is more to Tarog’s film than its surface-level charms. Heneral Luna is a film that doesn’t stop at depicting facts as they are. It confronts, questions, and at its best, it subverts institutionalized beliefs about heroes who are often dehumanized by schools that present them as beacons of nationalism.

 

Most of Hermano Puli is told as a flashback, triggered by an interrogation conducted by a Spanish governor (Markki Stroem) and his team of villainous friars on Puli (Aljur Abrenica). We get to know young Puli’s dreams of becoming a priest one day, an ambition that his mother lovingly shatters by telling him that it would be difficult for him to become a priest because he is a Filipino. He grows up, founds his confraternity, and grows it until it becomes big enough that it starts to threaten the Church. 

Utterly simplistic

Photo courtesy of T-Rex Productions

Hermano Puli simply isn’t sophisticated enough, which betrays its ambition of triggering a belated interest on the struggles of a forgotten hero. The film treats him like any other textbook revolutionary, a man who is too good to be true, and too virtuous to be realistically emulated. 

The screenplay is utterly simplistic, devoid of any discernable dimension other than the trite retelling of just another hero in a national history that produced so many others. Portes does what he can with the material, which is also a problem because some sort of perspective, doubt, or even skepticism could have done the film wonders. 

Photo courtesy of T-Rex Productions

Abrenica attempts to give Puli an aura of irresistible charisma. However, Abrenica simply does not have the range to pull it off and ends up with a performance that confuses. Hermano Puli has an array of other characters, most of which are either unnecessary because they do not add anything to the agenda, or forgettable because the actors bringing them to life do not have the requisite motivations to turn them into anything other than fodder.

Colorless history

Photo courtesy of T-Rex Productions

The result is a work that displays avenues worth exploring, but are never explored.

Hermano Puli is as colorless as an afternoon with a droning history teacher who is more interested in mouthing needless trivia rather than engaging students with ideas that could be springboards for revolution. – Rappler.com

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ ‘Tirad Pass.’ Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema.

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