How Not to Emulate Quezon as the Filipino Oskar Schindler: A Review of “Quezon’s Game”
Kas 111 (Colonial Philippine II) Reaction Paper 1
If there is only one movie that managed to make my eye shed a tear, it was definitely “Schindler’s List”. In a span of 3 hours of black and white heavy drama, it successfully showed the grim realities of the Holocaust and the ambivalent turned heroic character arc of German Nazi businessman Oskar Schindler (played by Liam Neeson), chronicling how he saved 1200 Jews from the death camps of Nazis by hiring them in his factories, with the assistance of a Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern (played by Ben Kingsley). It is an undeniable masterpiece, and it is surely included on one of the best historical films ever made.
But little that most of us Filipinos know, we actually have our own Holocaust story, through our first president of the Commonwealth Government Manuel L. Quezon. It was a cool tidbit of Philippine history that is interesting to know, but I do not think this chapter of life of President Quezon deserves to be given a screen adaptation, such as the beginning of his Commonwealth presidency, his love story with his cousin wife Aurora, his war efforts during the Philippine Revolution, or his presidency during the first days of Japanese invasion. There are other interesting aspects of his life that I think has more merits of being adapted into a movie. But here we are with this 2018 movie directed by Matthew Rosen called “Quezon’s Game”.
This film begins with some Jewish people hiding from Nazi soldiers, indicating the increasing anti-Semitic climate in central Europe at that time. Then it proceeds with the scene of sickly President Quezon (played by Raymond Bagatsing) and his wife Aurora (played by Rachel Alejandro) while in exile in New York, watching a short film about what Hitler and his Nazi officials have been doing to the Jews during the Holocaust. In an attempt to mirror the most tear-jerking scene in “Schindler’s List” where Schindler said to Stern before leaving his factory, “I could have got more”, Quezon looks at his wife in retrospect of the film they just watched and asked her, “Could I have done more?”
The main premise of the movie revolves around Quezon attempting to rescue 10,000 Jews from Germany and Austria in 1938, after learning about the fact while playing poker and chitchatting with a Jewish-American businessman Alex Frieder. Getting them out of Europe was the easy step, but the real challenge lies with convincing the American government to grant them Visas to the Philippines, considering that there were also antisemite officials making it difficult to happen. Quezon can only enact laws inside his country, but he was basically powerless when it comes to making decisions regarding foreign relations. This is because despite being the president, the Philippines was still under the protectorate of the United States as a colony. Whoever goes in and goes out of the archipelago, Uncle Sam always had the final say. Quezon’s task then was to convince his superior officer and the middleman between him and President Franklin Roosevelt, US High Commissioner Paul McNutt to take the Jewish refugees. In the end, only 1200 immigrants had their Visas granted and they settled mostly in a vacant property owned by Quezon in Balintawak (modern-day Quezon City) up until the invasion of Japanese forces in 1941.
Perhaps the first comment is that it did not feel like a Filipino movie, in a sense that it was not made for Filipino audiences, but for foreigners, despite being produced by a Filipino movie company and starring Filipino actors in lead roles. The movie also has a tendency to violate the “show, don’t tell” rule in good storytelling. The characters have a lot of dialogue and lacks action. I did not feel any tension with some scenes that were supposed to have a tensed atmosphere as well. Most of the scenes comprised of Quezon, his politician friends, and foreigners sitting on a table, either just talking or playing poker, smoking big puffs of cigars and tobacco pipes. Probably the closest emotional scene in the movie is when Frieder was forced to arbitrarily cross out the names of Jewish people who will not be granted an entry to the Philippines, or maybe during the heated arguments between the president and his wife.
In addition, those conversations between the couple alternating in Tagalog, English, and Spanish appeared to be rather weird. The character of Major Dwight Eisenhower (played by David Bianco) also looked too young, since in reality, Eisenhower was already in his fifties during that time period. It also seemed unnecessary to show an Emilio Aguinaldo cameo in the movie, as he seemed irrelevant on the overall theme of the story. In the movie, he is supposed to represent the opposition to Quezon on disapproving the entries of the Jews in the country, not on the grounds of antisemitism but about them taking jobs from the Filipino people. But the other supporting characters can already do it just fine. But sure, I get it, Aguinaldo was perhaps still bitter with his defeat against Quezon from the previous 1935 Commonwealth presidential elections, so he was there giving tirades about the decisions of the president.
Thankfully though, the overall dullness and stiffness of the movies was compensated by the superb and convincing acting skills of Bagatsing and Alejandro as President Quezon and First Lady Aurora. Bagatsing captured the swagger and charismatic nature of the president, as if he was meant to portray this role. Although it was a bit concerning how the movie paints Quezon too much as a complete hero who only wanted to save Jewish lives out of compassion. In real life, Quezon was a quintessential politician where he made strategic moves that he ensured to produce political gains. The subplot about Quezon’s tuberculosis resurging also at least added for the drama, although it was still historically accurate considering that the setting of the story happened only a few year before his death from the said lung disease.
Overall, “Quezon’s Game” was still a good watch, but of course not as excellent and compelling as that one movie that the directors were trying hard to resemble with. Their attempt on emulating Quezon as the Filipino Oskar Schindler who saved lives when nobody else did nothing, is disappointing to say the least. It could really use some more melodrama and action, and it would really just be better if they would dramatize other aspects of President Quezon’s life.
References:
Rosen, Matthew E., director, Quezon’s Game. Star Cinema, 2018. 2 hrs., 7 mins. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9611484/
Passed on July 2, 2023
