Reviewing "There Be Dragons"

          In spite of a busy Saturday last October 1, I had a chance to watch There Be Dragons* on its premier show.     That evening, my friends and I had some time to talk about the movie.  We were delighted to discover its richness and appreciated Roland Joffé.

          The production of There Be Dragons by its director Roland Joffé and key producer Ignacio Gómez-Sancha is one remarkable social enterprise.  To convey aesthetically through film these messages—redemption via the cross, the power of love and forgiveness, the fight to be saints in the middle of the world—are great risks amid current economic, social, political and historical situations.   These men and the whole production team deserve thanks for embarking on a commercial project which is also an education of the heart. 

          There are experiences in life that jolts, disorients, or weakens us.  Many times these are the bitter pill that we have to swallow.  The devastation or the loneliness, the looming fears and insecurities, the guilt that remains after a wrong deed or misgiving, the trauma or the wound after a conflict could deeply and intensely reside in us.  We get angry, we retaliate, or we run away as we refuse to see the reality of our wounds.  We get bitter.   Is there meaning and deliverance from all these?

  
           There Be Dragons brings us in the paradigm of love and forgiveness.  The movie gives you a panoramic view in a moment in history—the Spanish Civil War—when lives of its main characters: Josemaria, Manolo, Ildiko, Oriol and Roberto intertwine.  Each one looks for an ideal, each one looks for love.

          For Josemaria, the Love he found spurred and sustained him in his mission to establish Opus Dei especially in those difficult times of war.   By then, he was fighting hard to drown evil an abundance of good.  Manolo, though seen as Josemaria’s antithesis, looked for God’s redemptive love in the end through Josemaria.  Characters Ildiko and Oriol showed admirably the greatness and frailty of the human condition while Roberto’s saga summarized the conversion of his pain into love which made him free in the end.

          The openness to love and forgiveness, which Joffé rendered through Josemaria and the entire film, enables us to catch the signal of Christ who is in man.  This is the secret that enables to love, to forgive, to have compassion amid structures or dragons that obstruct recognition and acceptance of God.  The movie amplifies one's understanding of others and buoys him to face and slay his dragons.  
 

          In a recent teleconference interview with Roland Joffé at the University of Asia & the Pacific, he said, “We think we look at movies but I think movies look at us: movie stays the same but you hear different comments about it.”  From the screenplay and the actors who did well in putting passion in their roles, I recognized people I know--relatives, friends, people I love, people who make me suffer, etc. I saw myself too.   And in the experience of it, I became, in a way, a stakeholder of the film as I slay my dragons.


          I hope you can watch the movie in the big screen.  In Manila, it will be shown starting November 9 in cinemas: SM Megamall, SM North, SM Southmall, Trinoma, Glorietta 4, and Festival Mall. It is well worth one's money and time!

* “There Be Dragons” tells the story of two childhood friends, Josemaria and Manolo, whose lives take very different paths in the midst of the political and social unrest of the 1930’s in their native country of Spain. The film is inspired by actual events, especially the real life of St. Josemaria Escriva, a priest and founder of Opus Dei (from http://www.stjosemaria.org).