History in the hands of Jesuits
Somebody asked if “GomBurZa” was worth seeing. I thought it was. In any case, definitely not a production to be ignored and let pass, or we’d indeed have lost out.
I was not at all surprised, however, that some people had to ask. After all, Vergel and I, who watch Netflix in the comforts of home, do so only after checking out Rotten Tomatoes for movie reviews and even those rated high don’t always come up to our standards. We’ve probably just seen too many excellent movies to put up with anything less.
As seniors, we have also become more selective and stingier with our residual energy. When we went out to watch “GomBurZa,” we had already decided it was something to leave home for. Never mind if our Makatizen cards, which would give us all senior privileges including free movies, had not yet arrived, which meant we could only count on the regular 20-percent senior discount; we just couldn’t wait.
The strongest pull came from the involvement of the Jesuits in the research as well as the production of the movie. It had also been endorsed by our dear friend Paring Bert Alejo, S.J. My respect and fascination for Jesuits go back to my father’s days in the Ateneo, where he stayed longer than any of his eight brothers. Most of them went abroad after high school, but Dad stayed on, to finish his bachelor of laws in Ateneo. He had many stories about his Jesuit teachers. Many years later, in my early teens, I would again be regaled by a group of young Atenean friends with their own stories.My fascination with Jesuits was sustained in my relationships with some of them in important stages in my life. Ruben Tanseco guided me after my first marriage ended. Thomas Green was a favorite retreat master. Miguel Varela was a family friend. More recently we have linked lives with Jesuit on leave Tito Caluag, Jesuit-trained Robert Reyes and Paring Bert, now teaching at the Gregorian University in Rome.
Spiritual sustenance
My affection for the Jesuits is strengthened every Sunday at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), where we walk from home to hear Mass. Vergel and I have not only grown fond of the AIM community, we have found weekly spiritual sustenance to grow on in every well prepared and practical Jesuit homily.
Vergel and I are lucky to have been drawn to people who share our beliefs and values. We both love history, and are naturally drawn to any presentation of it in any art form. We make it a point in fact to watch historical or period pieces. We have never tired for instance of Nick Joaquin’s “Portrait of Filipino as an Artist,” and had watched several productions of it, until they turned it into a musical for cinema. We usually preferred our theater to cinema, which has scarcely presented any to our satisfaction—Lino Brocka’s own thing was cultural and contemporary. “Goyo” and “Heneral Luna” came somewhat close, but still seemed somewhat overdone or underdone in places. We picked up at lot more contexts and clarifications from “GomBurZa,” and thus felt inspired.
At last, after 151 years, we now know what really happened around and behind the martyrdom of the three Filipino priests—we did pick up some of it from the writings of Nick Joaquin, but even that lacked nuance, we think.
The three priests died a most cruel death—by garrote, a manner of execution that could only have been designed by the devil himself. Ironically, it was made for the Spanish Inquisition, made to punish agents of the devil himself.
I credit the Jesuits for “GomBurZa,” not to mention its directors and players. Indeed, they know how to tell and stay true to a story. My husband, in his column in Rappler, himself noted that the priests’ “martyrdom set the stage for the revolution that was to liberate us decisively from Spain—although only to deliver us into the arms of another and even trickier colonialist, but that’s another movie.”
Indeed, we hope the Jesuits don’t stop at “GomBurZa.” INQ
