Sunday, September 17, 2017

Movies In History: 1898, Our Last Men in the Philippines

This is a Spanish film dealing with the apparently true story of a Spanish outpost in the Philippines that held out well after the Spanish surrender to the United States in the Spanish American War.  It's the second Spanish film on this topic, with this one being made in 2016 and the earlier one being filmed, I think, in the 1940s (which somewhat makes sense, given the politics in Spain at the time).

 Spanish soldiers of this period in their summer uniforms, which were blue and white.

I don't know what the earlier film is like, but this one is only so-so.  It was worth watching, but not exactly great.  The film deals with the protracted struggle of a Spanish outpost that takes refuge in a village church against Philippine forces which were fighting Span in the 1890s and were quickly, after that, fighting the United States.  The story is a sad one, which it wold almost have to be, given the nature of the actual events.

In terms of portrayal, there seem to be weaknesses in various character portrayals from my prospective, but then I know nothing about the actual events.  The Philippine forces seem too well equipped, and even uniformed compared to what was likely the case, and some of the lurid portrays of the village are highly unlikely to have reflected reality given the Catholic Philippine nature of the region being portrayed.  The Spanish equipment and uniforms, however, appear to be quite accurate.

This film is available on Netflix, which is really the only reason I happened to catch it.  Very few films deal with the topic of the Spanish in the Philippines in this late period, and so it was perhaps worth watching on that account.


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