‘Heneral Luna’ earns nods at 10th Asian Film Awards

Even if Heneral Luna failed to nab an Academy Award nomination for best foreign language film when this year’s Oscar nominations were announced last month, the blockbuster biopic continues to earn accolades overseas.

The latest of these honors came from the 10th Asian Film Awards (AFAs), which unveiled its list of nominees last Thursday. Heneral Luna scored three nods: best actor for John Arcilla, who gave a commanding performance as the patriotic, but hotheaded revolutionary general; best production design for Benjamin Padero and Carlo Tajibe, and best costume design for Tajibe.

These nominations are the latest the Philippines received from the Hong Kong-based movie award-giving body since its establishment in 2007. Last year, acclaimed filmmaker Lav Diaz earned a best director nomination for the tremendous, 1970s-set masterwork Mula sa Kung Ano ang Noon (From What is Before). In 2014, comedienne Eugene Domingo garnered a best actress nod for Jun Robles Lana’s Marcos-era drama Barber’s Tales.

Some of our country’s finest performers even won at the AFAs. Eddie Garcia and Nora Aunor won best-actor and best-actress honors, respectively, in 2012; he, for Lana’s Bwakaw; she, for Brillante Ma. Mendoza’s Thy Womb. The year before, Shamaine Centenera-Buencamino earned the best supporting actress prize for Loy Arcenas’s Niño, and Domingo clinched the People’s Choice best actress award for Marlon Rivera’s Ang Babae sa Septic Tank (The Woman in the Septic Tank). And in 2009, Gina Pareño was named best supporting actress for Mendoza’s controversial Serbis (Service).

I think Arcilla has a good chance of winning and joining the ranks of those prize-winning Filipino performers. After all, his portrayal of Luna has been singled out by many Filipino and foreign reviewers, and it contributed a lot to the biopic’s success. Standing in his way to the podium, however, may be Hong Kong superstar Donnie Yen, who’s nominated for Ip Man 3. He’s Arcilla’s greatest competition, I think.

As for Padero and Tajibe, I wish them the best of luck. They face formidable competition, mainly from Hwarng Wern-Ying, the production and costume designer of acclaimed Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Assassin, which led all AFA contenders with nine nominations, including for best picture, director, actress and supporting actress.

I expect The Assassin to sweep, for many critics have raved about it since its debut at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, where Hou won the best director award. The film was Taiwan’s official entry to this year’s Oscars, but, like Heneral Luna, failed to earn a nomination.

Will Arcilla emerge triumphant, unlike what happened to his character? Will Hou’s martial-arts movie kill the competition? The answers will come when the AFAs will hold its annual ceremony at The Venetian Macao on Mar. 17.

Provocative, relevant

If you’re looking for a pre-Valentine’s Day date movie, I recommend Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl. This Oscar-nominated film—which is showing only at Ayala mall cinemas—is based on the life of transgender woman Lili Elbe (Eddie Redmayne), formerly known as Danish landscape painter Einar Wegener, who was one of the first to undergo sex-reassignment surgery—a very experimental and life-threatening procedure in the 1920s.

As provocative and relevant as The Danish Girl’s subject matter is, Hooper tells the reserved Wegener’s gradual transformation into blooming Lili in a respectful and tasteful manner, framing the story within period-drama conventions. I think it’s a wise move, for it lets viewers, among others, pay equal attention to Lili’s relationship with her wife and fellow painter Gerda (Alicia Vikander).

For me, their unusual love story forms the film’s emotional center, and both Redmayne and Vikander bring this to life beautifully. However breathtaking and showy Redmayne’s total immersion into his Academy Award-nominated role is, there are times his performance comes across as a bit too studied and technical.

In contrast, Vikander’s performance is full of warmth and vitality. Her confusion, her heartache, her struggle to accept her husband’s transformation—she conveys them powerfully. I’ll not be surprised if she wins the best supporting actress Oscar later this month.

Though The Danish Girl is about one of the first transgender women ever documented, it is also about that rare romantic relationship that defies the conventions of the day. It’s a relationship in which one succeeded to completely shed his former life for a new and more fulfilling one, and the other endured great pain to accept that with uncommon grace and dignity.