Line #73 Film/Amigo


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/5906933957_b9d6cfb001.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:[[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar The first Vietnam]]. Except America won.]]
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4	->"At the turn of the last century, the United States declared war on Spain. They pledged to free the island of UsefulNotes/{{Cuba}}, ninety miles to the south, from colonial rule. It was thus that American troops came to [[UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} yet another Spanish colony]]—half a world away. They decided to stay."
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6	''Amigo'', released in 2010, is an indie, joint American/Filipino production, directed by notable small-time indie filmmaker Creator/JohnSayles, and starring the likes of Creator/GarretDillahunt, Creator/ChrisCooper and Creator/DaneDeHaan on the American side, as well as a rather star-studded cast on the Filipino side, including such luminaries as Joel Torre, Rio Locsin, Ronnie Lazaro & Pen Medina, amongst others. (The Spanish side meanwhile is represented by a friar played—rather ironically, possibly deliberately so—by Cuban-American Yul Vazquez.)
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8	The UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}}, 1900. Joel Torre stars as Rafael Dacanay, the head (cabeza) of the tiny Filipino barrio of San Isidro, which is just beginning to enjoy its newfound independence from Spain (as evidenced by chained soldiers and the locked-up friar, Padre Hidalgo), when out of nowhere the Americans burst in, bringing the [[UsefulNotes/PhilippineAmericanWar "Philippine Insurrection"]] into this small corner of Luzon. This puts him between a rock and a hard place, as the Americans obviously expect him to cooperate, but his own brother is in the Revolutionary Army under General Emilio Aguinaldo, now forced to fight off a wholly new coloniser in this new, brutal and largely forgotten chapter in the history of American imperial power. The rest of his family is similarly divided by their loyalties. Both sides are armed, dangerous, and will not hesitate to shoot anyone presumed to be working for the enemy. Whose side is he to choose?
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10	Notable for being one of the very few fictional works made by Americans about their colonial empire, in stark contrast to the abundance of British colonial fiction and literature about UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire, producing such luminaries as Creator/RudyardKipling, Creator/GeorgeOrwell, Creator/EMForster, and so on. ''The Real Glory'', made back in 1939—before UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, while the Philippines was technically still a U.S. colony, though upgraded to Commonwealth status—is one of the few other known American films about the Philippine-American War period, and even then it deals with the Moro (Muslim) Rebellion in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao.[[note]]Most of Mindanao had never been conquered by the Spanish, so when the Americans came, the locals' resistance was basically independent from the originally anti-Spanish revolution in the northern and central Philippine regions.[[/note]] Contrast an even more obscure play by George Ade, ''Theatre/TheSultanOfSulu'', which deals with the U.S. invasion of Sulu, off the coast of Mindanao, and also a precursor to the Moro Rebellion—but which, as a [[TheMusical musical]], is treated more comically. [[note]]Partly this may be because the play was finished in 1902—the worst atrocities of the war, either in the Catholic Philippine regions or in Muslim-majority Mindanao, had yet to happen, let alone reach the attention of would-be ardent anti-imperialists, like Creator/MarkTwain, who later did write scathing indictments of American atrocities in Mindanao, most notably the Battle of Bud Dajo (a.k.a. the Moro Crater Massacre) of 1906.[[/note]]
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12	Also compare ''Film/HeneralLuna'', a 2015 {{Biopic}} also set during this war, and whose protagonist, the eponymous General Antonio Luna, was the RealLife chief-of-staff of General/President Emilio Aguinaldo's [[LaResistance Revolutionary Army]]. For another fictional though more minimalist and surreal take on the war from another part of the Philippine archipelago, compare ''Film/BalangigaHowlingWilderness'', a 2017 indie film set in Samar province, in the Visayas region in the central Philippines.
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15	----
16	!!Sample tropes featured in ''Amigo'':
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18	* ActorAllusion: Probably unintentional. The American colonel remarks that Aguinaldo could be hiding in the very village the movie is set and they'd be none the wiser. Joel Torre played Aguinaldo himself in ''Tirad Pass: The Last Stand of Gen. Gregorio del Pilar'' in 1996.
19	** Many of the same circle of actors recur frequently in various Filipino period movies; parish boy Nenong was played by John Arcilla, who would later famously headline ''Film/HeneralLuna''. Other such actors active in Filipino PeriodPiece circles include Ronnie Lazaro, who here plays Simón, Rafael's rebel brother. Joel Torre himself first got prominent billing in the 1982 ''Oro, Plata, Mata'', although that was set just prior to UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
20	* AerithAndBob: Hispanic names for the Filipinos (and the friar), English names for the Americans. (The modern Filipino tendency of mixing-and-matching—and modifying—all sorts of Western names would only come long ''after'' the American colonial occupation.)
21	** Not to mention the Chinese names of the full ethnic Chinese labourers, as well as the surnames of Chinese-Filipino mestizos.
22	* TheAlcoholic / CantHoldHisLiquor: Lynch, one of the American soldiers. Sometimes he has to be helped to relieve himself outdoors when he's had too much to drink.
23	* AmericaTakesOverTheWorld: Literally the entire reason for the story conflict.
24	* AuthorTract: There's a slight heavyhandedness to the film's message. In the past, indie director John Sayles has often made movies about the downtrodden and oppressed: menial labourers, immigrants, minorities, and now would-be colonial subjects, and ''Amigo'' pretty clearly shows how WarIsHell and how U.S. imperialism effectively aborted a new nation. To his credit, reviewers didn't see ''Amigo'' as ''too'' preachy, though.
25	* AuthorityInNameOnly: Rafael is largely reduced to this, a sort of native assistant colonial administrator, when the Americans set up a garrison in his village. They even kind of allow even more authority to Padre Hidalgo despite the latter being part of the departed, vanquished, Spanish-colonial regime, because they set him free as an indispensable interpreter and moral and social authority in the community, since he does control their behaviour as good, churchgoing Catholics.
26	* TheBadGuyWins: The Americans ''are'' the aggressors from the Filipino Revolutionaries' point of view, and it's a ForegoneConclusion that they defeat the rebels. More specifically, in the context of this film, [[spoiler:they sentence Rafael to die and then hang him]].
27	* BananaRepublic: It's a background detail, but broadly speaking, the First Philippine Republic (for which Rafael's brother's fighting), falls under this—it's very much Hispanicised or Latinised in character (having just broken free from 330+ years under Spain), has a government monopolised by oligarchic elites and a military leader (General Emilio Aguinaldo, who in RealLife called himself the "Dictator of the Philippines" at one point), and is about to begin a long, tangled relationship with the imperialist United States, just like many of the more stereotypical banana republics across Latin America.
28	* BoomerangBigot: A rebel named Locsin singles out Chinese workers to kill but it's noted that his own name is of Chinese origin, so he must be part-Chinese himself and he hates them for an unknown reason.
29	* ChineseLaborer: Some Chinese coolies are depicted in the show, a number of whom are pressed into working on the American side, ordered to dig ditches and other related jobs.
30	* LesCollaborateurs:
31	** How the Revolutionary Army views anyone suspected of collaborating with the U.S., which it naturally deems treason, and punishable by death.
32	** Downplayed with the Americans who have a few tag-along Filipinos and even a Spanish soldier among them serving as guides and translators. Some Filipinos had always collaborated with the Spanish and then the Americans instead of helping the revolutionaries, but the Spaniard joined the Americans since there's no place for him back in Spain after the Spanish surrendered.
33	** TheQuisling: As the point person who will have to deal with the American forces, Rafael is in danger of being seen as this by the Revolutionary leadership (including his own brother!) when he attempts to accommodate the Americans in his village.
34	* DeathOfAChild: Sadly, a little girl in the town is felled by a bullet. A poignant funeral scene with all its Hispanic Catholic pomposity follows, with children chanting Latin orations and older folk in lacy finery.
35	* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The U.S. troops throw racial slurs around with abandon, calling the Filipinos "goo-goos" (which later evolved into the term "gook", later used against their [[UsefulNotes/TheKoreanWar Korean enemies]], and still later against the [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnamese]]). The term "goo-goo", in fact, was first recorded used during this war. Ironically "goo-goo" may have evolved from Filipino itself, from "gago" (stupid), which may have been borrowed from Spanish. (Another theory is that it came from Tagalog ''gugo'', a native shampoo derived from the bark of the eponymous tree.)
36	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam?]] [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror Afghanistan? Iraq?]] Take your pick.
37	* DuringTheWar: Set during the Philippine-American War, so obviously.
38	* EagleLand: Largely Type 2, of course, considering the Americans are the new colonial occupying forces, but ''individual'' troops are at least sometimes portrayed as capable of their own sympathy and positive curiosity towards Filipinos and their culture (or at the very least, are humanised as {{Punch Clock Villain}}s who didn't really ask to fight a punishing, tropical guerrilla war), lending the film at least a modicum of Type 1 credentials.
39	* TheEmpire: The United States. No matter how much it denies the label, this was very much the role it was playing against the ragtag Filipino insurgency—and would continue to play [[ForegoneConclusion over the next century, by some metrics until]] ThePresentDay.
40	* EnsembleCast: Particularly on the Filipino side. Joel Torre, Ronnie Lazaro, Rio Locsin, Pen Medina, Bembol Roco … they and others are well-known veterans in Philippine entertainment. Meanwhile, there's Creator/ChrisCooper and [[RetroactiveRecognition a pre-stardom]] Creator/DaneDeHaan on the American side, which is kind of amusing given their future relationship in ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan2'', and also Creator/GarretDillahunt.
41	* EvilColonialist: As individuals, the Americans aren't presented as outright ''evil''—many of them get enough screen time to be considerably humanised—but as an occupying force they're presented as more than capable of inflicting their share of atrocities and brutalities on Filipino insurgents and civilians alike, which is already more than one can say for their typical good-guy image in most history books on ''both'' the American and Filipino sides.
42	** In the rear-view mirror, Spain too, which is why the Filipinos fought to break free from them in the first place. It's largely lost and conceded defeat by the movie's setting (in 1900), but its remnants continue to hold power in local communities like San Isidro, particularly in the form of Catholic friars like Padre Hidalgo.
43	* FaceDeathWithDignity: [[spoiler: Rafael is sentenced to die by the Americans for aiding the Revolutionaries. On his execution date, he puts on his Sunday best (a close-collared white suit) and goes to church with his wife.]]
44	* ForegoneConclusion: Sadly, we know that the Filipino resistance will eventually lose, and over the next several decades, the U.S. will successfully buy the loyalty of almost all of the Filipino populace, whether elite (via political tutelage, military aid, and exclusive trade deals) or masses (via mass English-language public education, Hollywood movies, and sports like basketball).
45	* FreezeFrameEnding: The film ends with the final surrender of the local rebels, including Rafael's son, some years later.
46	* GeneralRipper: Colonel Hardacre, who approves harsher methods against the Filipino rebels when they aren't bending to hearts-and-minds conditioning as easily as the Americans had hoped.
47	* TheGhost: Aguinaldo himself never shows up in this movie; indeed, no onscreen character here is a RealLife personality or a HistoricalDomainCharacter, in contrast to many Filipino PeriodPiece productions, which are more often explicitly {{Biopic}}s, BasedOnATrueStory, or TheFilmOfTheBook.
48	* GratuitousSpanish: There are Spaniards, so there's this, but very little since two of them are ex-colonial Spanish soldiers who spend little time in the film proper (apart from a little conversation and one of them in a minor sniping match with Padre Hidalgo), and none of the Filipino natives know much of it. Rafael uses exactly one phrase when introducing himself to the Americans: "''Soy muy amigo''" (I am a good friend).
49	* GratuitousLatin: Catholic masses and rituals were conducted almost entirely in Latin in this era, shown in Padre Hidalgo's pronunciations and the liturgical hymns (e.g., the one sang at a funeral).
50	* GorgeousPeriodDress: Especially evident among Filipino natives when they put on their gauziest finery, especially for Sunday masses and town fiestas, one of which plays out under direct American occupation. There are ''baro't sayas'' (embroidered women's shawled dresses), ''barong Tagalogs'' (embroidered men's shirts), a profusion of top hats and ''salakots'' or native conical hats, and opaque suits like Rafael's close-collared white one. The military uniforms depicted are relatively simple but not too shabby, like the Americans' dark blue-and-khaki outfits or the Revolutionaries' light-blue ''rayadillo'' ensembles.
51	* GreyAndGrayMorality: Contrary to conventional views of the U.S. being the uncritical heroes, they are not above concentration camps, torture, and brutal war crimes when engaging with the Filipinos. On the other hand, the Filipino rebels are also quite willing to ruthlessly kill the enemy and anyone working with them, such as the Chinese coolies employed by the U.S. troops.
52	* TheHeroDies: [[spoiler:Rafael Dacanay is hanged by the Americans.]]
53	* HiddenDepths: Lt. Compton served in the Peace Corps prior to this war, and had architectural training. That's how he's able to deduce that the Philippine islands are an "earthquake country": he notes that their headquarters have stout, load-bearing posts. TruthInTelevision for some variants of the Philippine ''bahay na bato'' [[note]]"stone house"; actually any colonial house with a stone structure and sometimes walls[[/note]], especially those in northern Luzon, like the city of Vigan.
54	* HomeGuard: The Spanish prisoners of the Filipino rebels, later set free by the Americans, are just the village friar, the officer of the local Civil Guard (Guardia Civil) and a few troopers, who are actually Filipinos unlike the previous two.
55	* ItsAlwaysSunnyAtFunerals: The child's funeral around the halfway mark of the movie is officiated by Padre Hidalgo and carried out in broad daylight, soon before the arrival of the rains. There is also the parallel funeral of a downed insurgent, presided over by rebel leader Simón, who was trained in a seminary but has grown to hate the friars' brand of Catholicism.
56	* LatinLand: The Revolutionaries just finished defeating Spanish-colonial forces, tying up their officers and even locking up a Spanish friar, both integral elements of a colonial regime that controlled much of the Philippine islands for over 300+ years prior. By this point, it's pretty much Latin Land in Asia, what with Hispanic-influenced architecture, an oligarchic BananaRepublic fighting for independence in the background, and almost everyone being at least nominally Catholic (and holding Catholic fiestas, masses, funerals, etc.), and having mostly Spanish given and/or family names.[[note]]There are exceptions, of course: "Dacanay" itself, the titular Amigo's surname (and his family's, duh), is of native origin, Tagalog or otherwise; and those with some Chinese blood also have Hispanicised but originally Chinese-derived surnames (e.g., Locsin).[[/note]]
57	* LaResistance: The Revolutionary Army of the First Philippine Republic, for whom Rafael's brother, Simón, is fighting.
58	* MacheteMayhem: Besides rifles, the insurrectos carry long bolo knives, similar to machetes. One of them, Locsin, develops a fearsome reputation for cutting wide swathes of carnage ''and'' seizing enemy firearms with just a bolo.
59	* MeetTheNewBoss: American colonialists quickly replace Spanish ones. Philippine independence barely got a squeak in between.
60	* MightyWhiteyAndMellowYellow: The Filipinos seem to be a frequent target of this. One of the Americans stationed in San Isidro falls for a native girl, even if neither can understand what the other's saying. One of the disgraced Spanish soldiers is also taking a native woman home with him to Spain. (TruthInTelevision for many Filipinos, even today.)
61	* MortonsFork: Rafael Dacanay's situation. Poor sod must either bend the knee to the Americans, and get charged with treason and shot by his insurrecto relatives—or join LaResistance, and get charged with banditry and hanged by the Americans.
62	* NerdGlasses: Signal Corpsman Zeke wears round, metal-rimmed glasses. He's slight in build, and (per his position) mans the garrison's communications.
63	* OccupiersOutOfOurCountry: Precisely what the Filipino Revolutionaries are fighting for. They just finished kicking the Spaniards out—they're not about to let the Americans take away their hard-won independence!
64	* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Nenong, the sacristan. Only after he replaces [[spoiler:the executed]] Rafael as village headman does he insist on being called Don Saturnino.
65	* PeriodPiece: Set at the height of the (officially dated) Philippine-American War, 110 years prior to the release date.
66	* PoorCommunicationKills: Quite literally. [[spoiler: The rebels cut down a telegraph line ''just as the news of Aguinaldo's capture is being relayed to San Isidro''. Rafael ends up hanging effectively [[NiceJobBreakingItHero because of them]]. (In their defence, they didn't know.)]]
67	* POWCamp: The entirety of San Isidro is converted into a concentration camp for its own residents. The U.S. troops set up a barbed-wire perimeter and warn that anyone caught crossing it will be shot. It doesn't seem to be terribly effective, however, since rebel forces do manage to bleed back and forth across it.
68	* PunchClockVillain: Many of the American troops are just boys who are JustFollowingOrders, and while they might be insensitive (to varying degrees), some of them are capable of a slight degree of tolerance or sympathy for the Filipino locals, particularly the "civilian" population that doesn't appear to be fighting.
69	* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Lt. Compton, in charge of the garrison at San Isidro, who is at least levelheaded, not quite raring to crush the rebels like Col. Hardacre, his superior, is.
70	* RebelLeader: Simón Dacanay, Rafael's brother, an officer in Aguinaldo's Revolutionary Army. He looks visibly different with his long black hair and beard as opposed to Rafael's short grey hair and clean-shaven face.
71	* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: One of the revolutionaries, Locsin, keeps targeting Chinese workers employed by the Americans (and the Spanish in the past) who are just caught in the crossfire. It's stated to be out of his personal bigotry despite he himself being part Chinese. Also he's said to be a literal bandit who joined the cause, which accepts all comers.
72	* SinisterMinister: Padre Hidalgo, the local Spanish friar, who wields more ''de facto'' power than even Rafael Dacanay does as the ''cabeza del barrio'', even when the Spanish government ''per se'' has already surrendered to the Filipinos. As a polyglot who knows both Tagalog and English in addition to his native Spanish—and Latin, as expected in his line of work—Padre Hidalgo is thus indispensable to the American occupying force as an interpreter, and is thus kept free to maintain the Americans' control over the town. The enormous latitude of such indirect friar power over the natives is TruthInTelevision.
73	* StealthPun: Col. Hardacre. A "wiseacre" is a more polite term for "wiseass", and Hardacre is a [[MeaningfulName hardass]] compared to Lt. Compton.
74	* TitleDrop: When Rafael tells the Americans "I am a good friend" in Spanish: "Soy muy amigo". The U.S. troops later on call him "the amigo" at times, especially if they didn't recall his name, or care to.
75	* VestigialEmpire: Spain. By this point, they've already lost, already sold off the Philippines to the incoming Americans for $20 million, per the 1898 Treaty of Paris. Except for the friar (and initially including him too), all their men have effectively been locked or tied up by the so-far victorious [[LaResistance Revolutionaries]].
76	* WaterTorture: Col. Hardacre orders his U.S. troops to essentially waterboard Rafael to give up the location of the rebel base. TruthInTelevision, too: the "water cure" used by American soldiers on Filipinos is basically an ancestor of modern waterboarding, involving forcing huge quantities of water into the victim's guts and then stepping or jumping on their distended stomachs to throw it all up, all the while feeling like drowning.
77	* WarIsHell: This proto-Vietnam riceland/jungle setting proves intensely discomforting to the Americans, what with mud, mosquitoes, alternating humid sun and torrential rainfall, and the quick spread of tropical diseases. It's also hell for the Filipinos, who aren't entirely immune from the diseases themselves (many insurgents actually died of things like cholera), and could expect brutal treatment if captured by the Americans, including torture methods like the infamous "water cure"—essentially the precursor to the waterboarding employed against the Middle East in UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror, a century hence.
78	* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: The Filipino revolutionaries are called mere bandits (bandidos) and thieves (ladrones) by others. The Americans even pronounce "ladrones" wrong, as in attack drones which don't exist yet. Played with as the Filipinos consider it no slur to call themselves insurrectos or rebeldes since they rose up against ''Spain'', but insist on being revolucionarios defending themselves against the newly invading U.S.

Context Film / Amigo