This is the last of the three-part series on the best scenes in Philippine cinema in 2023, as voted by the members of the Society of Filipino Film Reviewers. If you haven’t read them yet, here are Part 1 and Part 2.
This write-up contains one scene only, voted by SFFR as 2023’s best. Providing commentaries are SFFR members John Tawasil and Skilty Labastilla, actor Cedrick Juan, cinematographer Carlo Mendoza, and director Pepe Diokno.
Execution – GomBurZa
John Tawasil, SFFR: “The execution scene of GomBurZa is the crown jewel of the film. It eschews any histrionics – the atmosphere is somber and grim, with only the diegetic beats of a drum call to keep us company. It truly feels like you are there with the crowd witnessing the events unfold. The sun is barely visible, and the time is not clearly stated; to me it signifies both the twilight of ages and the dawn of revolution.
There is no overt violence – the corpses of the three martyrs are not even shown – but it is not necessary. The sound of the garrote tightening on the necks of Francisco Zaldua and the three priests leaves much to the imagination. Each martyr faces their respective deaths in different ways, whether it be in catatonic resignation; a firm, determined adherence to faith; or even despair in the face of injustice. Four men died, but something was born on that fateful February day in 1872, or rather, a fire was stoked – a fire that burned and raged in the decades to come.”
Skilty Labastilla, SFFR: “Emotionally charged scenes are quite tricky to pull off. Moviegoers can easily spot emotional manipulation if the film commits the mistake of overselling the drama. And the task is even more challenging when the said scene happened in real life.
In 2023, no other scene moved me as much as the ten-minute garrote scene in GomBurZa did. Buoyed by the strong performances of all actors (even the extras) in the scene, and all the technical elements beautifully orchestrated by director Pepe Diokno, the scene slowly built to an emotional crescendo, leaving audiences choked up and gasping for air.
There were a lot of smart small details in this sequence, but one thing I want to highlight is the obvious agony felt by the executioner (the wonderful Floyd Tena), who winces in pain, along with those he executed, with his every wring of the garrote screw. Before he would end the life of Padre Burgos, the executioner kneels in supplication in front of the priest, who forgives him for what he was about to do. This shows that even then, Filipinos, even those working for the Spanish government, already knew that the execution was a grave injustice to the priests but were helpless about it.”
Carlo Mendoza, cinematographer: “From the very first time that Pepe discussed the execution scene or the garrote scene, I knew that it was going to be one of the toughest scenes to shoot. I remember saying, ‘If the garrote scene doesn’t work then our film will not work at all.’ It was one of the biggest scenes in the film and the most emotional one. Due to the limited budget that we had, I was told that we only had a day to shoot it. In an ideal world, to be able to really shoot that scene effectively, I would recommend to shoot it at least 3 days. But we didn’t have the budget of a Martin Scorsese film where they have the luxury to film a scene at certain times of the day to have consistent proper light. In
our case, we just had to make it work. And to be honest, in the beginning of prep, I didn’t know how we were going to do it and how my department was going to accomplish something that seemed impossible. But I knew that we had to get as many shots as possible for Pepe and our editor, Ben Tolentino, to have the shots needed to make the scene work emotionally. I knew that the quality of the light was not the priority. I kept telling myself that the performances and the scene itself would make the scene work if Pepe and Ben had the shots they needed regardless if the light was not perfect. I would have to live with the fact that this scene will not have consistent lighting because we would have to shoot the whole day with the light constantly moving and its quality changing. I told myself to shoot as many shots as we could through the day then work a lot in color grading to make the light appear or feel consistent in its emotional beats. I knew it was going to be the hardest scene that Verge Tafalla had to color grade. In general, cinematographers strive for consistency in the lighting so for this scene, color grading would really help me achieve that. I’ve learned to choose my battles.
This scene was one of the last ones we thoroughly planned. We already had a general idea of what Pepe wanted for the scene but he couldn’t go into specifics until we had the right location. It couldn’t be just any field, it had to resemble Bagumbayan in 1872. Our location manager, Vangie Torcino, exhausted all possible locations. She showed different fields but Pepe and Ericson, our PD didn’t think any could work. Then one day, Vangie took us to Palo Alto in Baras, Rizal. When we got there, Pepe walked around and I walked around. We weren’t talking and we were both trying to figure out if the location was going to work for the scene. I looked around to survey the entire space trying to figure out the direction the cameras could face without seeing any modern structure to avoid having to erase things in VFX. Then I sketched the floor plan of the whole area and identified the direction of the sun from east to west and how the sun moved from 7am to 6pm. The fastest way for me to work was to work with the sun. Exterior lighting is very tricky when you are on a time limit and when you cannot afford big flags and solids to control
the light. So the best way for me was to shoot back lit or side lit. The most beautiful light source is the sun, do not fight it, rather get to know it and embrace and surrender to its movement. As a rule of thumb, shoot towards the east in the morning, shoot towards the south in midday and towards the west in the afternoon.
Next thing I had to check was where to suggest to put the execution stage set and identify which direction of the camera will give us the best light for the moment of execution. This was the most critical part for me. This was my non-negotiable. I wanted to make sure that the moment that the three martyrs were going to be dragged to the stage and their moment of death were shot at the right time of the day that would be most effective visually and emotionally. That was going to be the most powerful moment of the scene. Since we only had a day to shoot the scene, my main philosophy was to embrace and follow the fading of the light throughout the day as each of them was executed, giving us the feeling that hope was fading away as the sun was setting and their deaths would ignite the fire in the Filipinos watching their execution as well as the audience watching on the big screen.
Then we all reconvened and all agreed that the location was perfect. We could move the camera 270 degrees and you won’t have a problem with seeing things that were not period correct. The rest that we couldn’t show had houses because it was a residential area which could then be used as production’s staging area: the tents, vans, portable toilets etc. Once we defined the layout of the set based on where the execution stage was going to be put, Pepe sat down and plotted the scene from the arrival of Paciano and Jose Rizal, who was still a kid. The two were
going to watch the execution of GOMBURZA which would then inspire Jose Rizal to write his novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. So Pepe walked us through what was going to happen in the scene through his sketches while also giving the emotional beats of the scene. He then identified all the shots that he needed. And then, I suggested what to shoot first, what shots to shoot at specific times of the day based on my understanding of the sun and based on the emotional beats of the scene. Our AD, Bea Juana then fixed the schedule and gave the specific call times of this huge and very crucial scene that would make or break the film.
And so we were ready to shoot. What happened during the shoot? Well, that’s another story!”
Cedrick Juan, actor: “We shot the whole garrote scene for one whole day, that was our only sequence/scene we did. Call time was 3am for all the set up and preparation for the most harrowing scene of the film GOMBURZA. We only had 12 hours of daytime to cover all the important scenes that led to the execution. I can still remember my call time was 10am and i had to prepare everything from costumes, continuity of my make up and hair from prison cell and finally to ready my emotions for the garrote scene. I was called to be on the set by 2:30pm. From there i was concentrating on my emotions, recalling my lines, recalling all the first 13 days of shoot we had and all the informations from research i studied. Good thing it was also my last shooting day for GOMBURZA. It helped me to accumulate all the journey and advises i had with my co-actors, production staff, Pepe Diokno and my emotional treading from past sequences/days that we shot. I told myself that since Burgos was the last to be executed i would take that opportunity to watch Zaldua, Zamora and Gomes from the moment they were taken on their seats, how the soldiers forced and dragged them to garrote, how they struggled and faced their death. I was kind of being technical at first because i know it will help me internalize more, it will give me an idea how the first three victims of injustices faced their final minutes of their lives. I also used ‘substitution acting’. In acting, substitution is the understanding of elements in the life of one’s character by comparing them to elements in one’s own life. I want to inject more personal emotions and connections to Zaldua, Zamora and Gomes. I thought of Zaldua as a distant friend, Zamora as my brother and Gomes as my father. That we were all about to die from injustices and wrong accusations. I did the garrote scene with vulnerability as much as possible, because i still want to see each Filipino’s eyes. Because from historical accounts and from what I read from Ambeth Ocampo’s article on how GOMBURZA faced their death, he noted that Burgos still recognized the regular churchgoers he knew. Ocampo also noted that Burgos faced his death cowardly and crying. But for me and Pepe it wasn’t just cowardice, there was an act of defiance on his last lines of Burgos saying ‘What crime have I committed to deserve such a death? I haven’t committed any crime!’ It was like a near-death experience, it’s the scene that I will never forget.”
Pepe Diokno, co-writer/director: “The scene is quite faithful to historical accounts. They were executed one by one — Zaldua first, followed by Zamora (who had lost his sanity), then Gomes, then Burgos. Gomes and Burgos’ final words in the film are word for word lifted from historical accounts as well.
But we do deviate in two key aspects. First, with Zaldua. Historical accounts say he stepped on the garrote smiling, smugly assured that he would be pardoned at the last minute. In our film, we saw Zaldua as more of a fall guy, someone who didn’t have the social status to assume he would be pardoned.
The second departure is Burgos. Historical accounts paint him as weepy and pathetic in his final moments, and as storytellers we could not accept this. First and foremost, it goes against what we know about Burgos as being a firebrand, a leader of the secularization movement, the author of the ‘Los Filipinos’ Manifesto. Why would he in his final moments go against his character? Secondly, we read into his final words (‘Wala kaming kasalanan! Bakit kami kailangang mamatay nang ganito? Wala bang hustistya sa mundo?’), and we asked ourselves, isn’t proclaiming one’s innocence in the face of death, and in complete disagreement with the powers that be — isn’t this the most dignified and defiant thing one could do? So that’s how we treated the scene.
We intentionally scheduled the scene towards the end of production so that the actors could fully be in character by that time. There were a lot of discussions about the scene throughout the shoot because we all knew it was make or break; that if we didn’t pull it off the entire film would not work.
On the day of the shoot, I remember the feeling of being transported back in time because of Ericson Navarro’s set. We shot the crowd reactions first, and our actors were so generous that they ran through the entire execution multiple times (even if the camera wasn’t on them) so that the crowds could react realistically to their deaths.
There’s a look that Gomes and Burgos give each other before Gomes is brought to the garrote; and a defiant tug that Gomes does to free himself from the Spanish soldiers. That was an idea of Tito Dante and Cedrick. They were so fully in character and improvising as we shot.
Carlo Mendoza did time the main execution shots to be filmed during magic hour; but we were not prepared for how glorious the sun turned out. I would also like to acknowledge Carlo and our colorist Verge Taffala for grading the scene in such a way that the whole thing felt seamless, even if we didn’t shoot it in real time.
We had planned on shooting it all in one day, but it was not enough. I’m grateful that the producers allowed us to shoot pick-ups on another day (a few more crowd shots, more close-ups of the actors, etc.). What was strange was that the wind somehow followed us from our main location in Tanay, Rizal, to our pick-ups location in Intramuros, Manila. Even our team can’t tell which shots were just pick-ups, because everything came together.”