Noli Me Tangere

Nicole Patricia H. Nuguid November 22, 2011Literature 13 Sec E21 Reflection Paper
A Second Look: A Reflection on Noli Me Tangere’s Film Version
I was in third year high school when I first read the novel and saw the film version of thefamous Noli Me Tangere. I had encountered the characters, memorized the chapters andappreciated few of the episodes in the novel in some way. Since then, I haven’t paid muchattention to what this novel was truly about and how its film version affected my understandingof the original text. It was just yesterday when I had a second look at the film that made meconscious of some things I did not notice and value back then. This second chance allowed menot to simply see a novel become a film but to examine several angles such as itscinematography, characterization, how the film held the novel’s plot and the different things itimplies about Filipinos.In the most superficial way of seeing it, almost everyone noticed and complained aboutthe film’s poor cinematography. Besides it being in black-and-white, the poor sound quality anddim picture made it even more dull and unexciting. I was not able to understand several lineseither because the dialogue sounded rough or the captions were invisible. There were several poorly lit scenes that gave me a hard time to understand what was happening. However, Iunderstand that the film has existed for many years now. It is not surprising that a viewer fromthe present generation would find such film old, poorly made and even funny.Secondly, more than the audio-visual angle, the film also has issues on characterization.On one hand, I can say that the character of Crisostomo Ibarra was not well portrayed. The mainactor did not seem to fit the image of Ibarra which I believe is the reflection of Jose Rizalhimself. My expectation of his character (educated, principled and brave) based on the writtennovel was different from how I saw him in the film (weak, emotional and dependent). It almostappeared that Elias is the hero in the story, making the plot move. On the other hand, thecharacters of Sisa, Father Salvi and Don Anastacio effectively reflected a certain sector in theFilipino society during that time. Sisa’s pathetic and foolish character represented the oppressed,the skinny and pervert Father Salvi represented the opportunist friars, while the witty DonAnastacio represented those who stood against the persecution of Filipinos.