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    A Movie Review Quezon's Game: The Inspiring Story of The Philippines' "Oskar Schindler"

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    The Teach Hero
    Quezon's Game is a 2018 Philippine film that tells the story of Philippine President Manuel Quezon's efforts during WWII to rescue 1,200 Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. The film depicts Quezon working with High Commissioner Paul McNutt, Jewish businessman Alex Frieder, and General Dwight Eisenhower to obtain visas for the refugees. However, the film fails to accurately portray the broader context and roles of other individuals and groups involved. While it highlights an important historical event, the film oversimplifies the events and timelines for dramatic effect rather than historical accuracy.

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    A Movie Review Quezon's Game: The Inspiring Story of The Philippines' "Oskar Schindler"

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    The Teach Hero
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    Quezon's Game is a 2018 Philippine film that tells the story of Philippine President Manuel Quezon's efforts during WWII to rescue 1,200 Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. The film depicts Quezon working with High Commissioner Paul McNutt, Jewish businessman Alex Frieder, and General Dwight Eisenhower to obtain visas for the refugees. However, the film fails to accurately portray the broader context and roles of other individuals and groups involved. While it highlights an important historical event, the film oversimplifies the events and timelines for dramatic effect rather than historical accuracy.

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    Quezon's Game

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    Quezon's Game is a 2018 Philippine film that tells the story of Philippine President Manuel Quezon's efforts during WWII to rescue 1,200 Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. The film depicts Quezon working with High Commissioner Paul McNutt, Jewish businessman Alex Frieder, and General Dwight Eisenhower to obtain visas for the refugees. However, the film fails to accurately portray the broader context and roles of other individuals and groups involved. While it highlights an important historical event, the film oversimplifies the events and timelines for dramatic effect rather than historical accuracy.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    165 views3 pages

    A Movie Review Quezon's Game: The Inspiring Story of The Philippines' "Oskar Schindler"

    Uploaded by

    The Teach Hero
    Quezon's Game is a 2018 Philippine film that tells the story of Philippine President Manuel Quezon's efforts during WWII to rescue 1,200 Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. The film depicts Quezon working with High Commissioner Paul McNutt, Jewish businessman Alex Frieder, and General Dwight Eisenhower to obtain visas for the refugees. However, the film fails to accurately portray the broader context and roles of other individuals and groups involved. While it highlights an important historical event, the film oversimplifies the events and timelines for dramatic effect rather than historical accuracy.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    A Movie Review Quezon's Game: The Inspiring Story of the Philippines'

    "Oskar Schindler"

    The uplifting story of the "Oskar Schindler of the Philippines" deserves to be told better.
    Quezon's Game, a 2018 Philippine biographical drama film, is a collaboration between Star
    Cinema, iWant, and Kinetek. Matthew Rosen, the director of Quezon's Game, is a British
    national who lives in the Philippines with his Filipino wife Lorena Rosen, who is also a co-
    producer on the film that only had a production budget of $500,000. Nonetheless, the color film
    is 125 minutes long and is filmed in English, Spanish, and Tagalog. The movie is also an
    excellent expression of Manuel Quezon's heroism during World War II. Quezon's Game
    influences the social remembrance of past events as it offers a unique viewpoint on World War II
    and depicts the obstacles Quezon had to overcome under American authority to protect the rights
    and dignity of the oppressed.

    During the pre-World War II era, Philippine President Manuel L. Quezon, portrayed by
    Raymond Bagatsing, devised a scheme to shelter German and Austrian Jews fleeing Nazi
    Germany in the Philippines. As other countries slammed their doors shut, President Quezon
    provided refuge to 1,200 Jews from Germany and Austria in 1939 with the help of High
    Commissioner to the Philippines Paul McNutt (James Paoleli), Jewish American businessman
    Alex Frieder (Billy Ray Gallion), and military advisor — and future US President — Dwight
    Eisenhower (David Bianco). Hence, a deft political operator wheeled and dealt with Washington,
    which controlled the Philippines' borders at the time and obtained visas for the refugees. The plot
    is based on a real-life political chess game that has all the elements of a compelling race-against-
    the-clock thriller, but it devolves into plodding, tedious, and unconvincing melodrama. As the
    narrative comes to a head with a battle between Quezon and Roosevelt's government, which
    includes anti-Semites who are obstructing visas on false national security grounds, it should
    make your heart race, yet this is a film with exposition-heavy speech. However, there is one
    heartbreaking scene in which Alex Frieder, a Jewish-American exile, weeps in anguish as he is
    forced to choose 200 names for the initial wave of immigration from a list of thousands of
    Jewish candidates. In the end, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines prevented Quezon's
    attempt to save 10,000 Jews.

    There are two types of historical films: those that attempt to mirror reality and attempt to
    build a new world to serve a story best. Sometimes it's clear which type you're going for, but
    other times the reality is much more subtly hidden. However, in most circumstances, either
    approach is acceptable if the picture is creatively successful. The case of Quezon's Game is not
    one of them. Indeed, the Philippines took in 1,200 Jewish immigrants from Nazi Germany, but
    the film is framed so that the entire thing appears to be carried out exclusively on Quezon's back.
    More information about the role of High Commissioner Paul McNutt, the Jewish Refugee
    Committee of Manila, and the broader backdrop of the plans to make Mindanao into "a new
    Palestine," as historian Bonnie Mae Harris describes it, would be ideal. Another factor to
    consider is that a large part of the reason this was feasible was the Philippines' unique status as
    an American colony, not primarily due to it, as the film implies. Quezon was also seeking
    constitutional changes to assure his re-election, while McNutt was considering running for
    President of the United States in the impending 1940 elections, both of which are factors that
    needed to be highlighted more prominently in the film. To add, the timeline of Quezon's Game
    depicted events as if they occurred over a period of weeks. Presumably, due to a lack of telling
    audiences about the actual timeline. By reason, there are so few films depicting Philippine
    history it's all too tempting to presume that each one is accurate enough.

    Despite some inaccuracies, I applaud the film's writers for retelling this wonderful story
    in a new and moving way, despite difficulties and challenges in retrieving and collecting local
    manuscripts about Quezon's great humanitarian cause, and instead considered to consult and read
    theses and dissertations of American historians who tackled the subject matter. Moreover, it was
    able to capture the expected emotions of the viewers. I was personally moved as Quezon tries to
    finish his duty while dealing with the agonizing task of lowering the refugee list in the face of
    opposition to visas, refugee quota hikes, and exit permits. Raymond Bagatsing presented himself
    as a dignified and elegant portrayal of Quezon. Other actors, particularly Gallion, Bianco, and
    Paoleli, give equal performances that were genuine to the characters' objectives. To be honest,
    even though Quezon's character is the primary character in the film, all four characters shined
    equally. However, the presence of three languages in the film, despite being present during the
    timelines, rendered the discourse more "detrimental than useful." It would be preferable if they
    just used Tagalog and English.

    Quezon's Game closing credits were accompanied by interviews and touching


    testimonials about the powerful good that resulted from one noble man's commitment to helping
    others while the world turned away with some of the children Quezon saved as youngsters, as
    well as their families. This is a little-known fragment of our history that must be treasured and
    remembered. In today's world of uncertainty, prejudice is the kind of story we need. Quezon's
    Game explores the complexities of human decisions and how one could be drawn into obstacles
    that sometimes tapped our ethical choices and emotions – asking us to reconsider our priorities
    when we could help those suffering. I am inspired by this narrative of doing the right thing in the
    face of unfavorable odds, of a selfless and exceptional act that leaves one wondering to his dying
    day, "Could I have done more?".
    References

    Friedlander, J. (2021, March 19). Why Filipinos Deserve Much Better Than Quezon’s Game.

    SINEGANG.PH. https://www.sinegang.ph/features/why-filipinos-deserve-much-better-

    than-quezons-game

    Neal, M. (2020, March 6). Quezon’s Game, how Filipino president Manuel Quezon rescued

    1,200 Jews from the Holocaust. ABC News.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-06/how-filipino-president-manuel-quezon-

    rescued-1200-jews/12009840

    Tenorio, R. (2020, March 3). Little known Philippines’ WWII rescue of Jews was capped by US

    interference. Times of Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/little-known-philippines-

    wwii-rescue-of-jews-was-capped-by-us-interference/

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