Director John Sayles is delving into history again, and this time it's a little bit of American adventurism in the early twentieth century that's frequently glossed over in the history books: the Philippine-American War. In Amigo, Filipino actor Joel Torre plays Rafael, the mayor of a small village who's forced to accommodate a troop of American soldiers, an act that puts him into deadly opposition with his brother (Ronnie Lazaro), the leader of a local guerrilla group fighting the invasion. As the Americans -- prime amongst them an open-minded lieutenant (Garret Dillahunt) and a gung-ho colonel (Chris Cooper) -- struggle both to attain tactical advantage in their battles while winning the civilian population over to their side, there are no few parallels to recent U.S. overseas history. In this case, though, we get to see the conflict through the eyes of the invaded, and learn how people trying just to live their lives can wind up in the center of a no-win situation.
Click on the player to hear my interview with John Sayles.
An important thing about the Philippine-American War is though the Americans did find a way to exploit the resources of the Philippines (Del Monte and Dole made tremendous profits from their Philippine Plantations, and still do; The American Rubber Companies owned the entire island of Basilan, and the Filipinos on that island were born into a Plantation dynamic as existed in the US prior to the civil war; The Island of Negros was the bastion of US Sugar Plantations; Even Douglas MacArthur owned a large stake in the Benguet Gold Mines.)but the Americans, despite occupying the Philippines as Colony and Commonwealth from 1898 to 1946 never won the peace. Because of this fact, the American Colonial Government never had confidence in building a domestic army of Filipinos to defend the country for fear they would turn on the Americans and run them out, This was costly for the United States when the Japanese invaded and there were no veteran Filipino troops, besides the Philippine Scouts to face them in addition to American forces.
The nightmare of never winning the peace is what we are likely facing in Iraq and Afghanistan too.
Everyone should see "Matewan" and learn a little something about why we have labor unions.