It’s perhaps inevitable that director Matthew Rosen’s Quezon’s Game will draw comparisons to Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film, Schindler’s List. Both films are about powerful men who save hundreds of Jewish refugees during World War II. In the new film’s case, that man is Filipino president, Manuel Quezon (Raymond Bagatsing). Both films have muted color palettes — black and white in Schindler and subdued almost sepia-tinged colors here. Each even contains an almost identical line of dialogue. In Schindler, Liam Neeson’s titular character fights back tears at film’s end as he says he says he could have saved one more person. Here, Quezon’s first line comes after he watches an American newsreel at the end of the war: “Could I have done more?”
Given those similarities, many viewers may be inclined to dismiss Quezon and the filmmaking itself doesn’t convince the viewer otherwise. The cinematography is often clunky and static, whole scenes framed in a stage-y way that emphasizes the artifice. The acting varies wildly, with performers like Tony Ayn as one of two Jewish plantation owners sticking out like sour thumbs next to Bagatsing’s layered and contemplative performance. Yet despite the film’s weaknesses, what makes Quezon’s Game worth viewing is that it’s not just the story of how the Philippines accepted Jewish refugees when so many countries wouldn’t, but how this story ties into the history of America.
Though it’s bookended by a flash forward, the bulk of the story takes place in Manila in 1938, when the Philippines is still a commonwealth of the US and before their scheduled independence in 1945. That independence becomes a political bargaining chip throughout the film, but not before Quezon and his advisors learn from Alex Frieder (Billy Ray Gallion) that the Holocaust is beginning. Though the country took in a much smaller number of Jewish refugees fleeing Shanghai the year before and Quezon is moved to do something by the prospect of thousands of deaths, he’s also hesitant to agree because he worries it will jeopardize his political position.
Indeed, the film spends much of its runtime addressing that and other obstacles and much of its drama comes from the complex political maneuvering involved in getting the Jewish refugees to the Philippines at all. Inevitably, some of those machinations are more compelling than others. Though the early discussions about whether to accept the refugees at all can drag on, the film gets a necessary jolt when Lt. Ebner (Kevin Kraemer) shows up in full Nazi regalia. Though Ebner can seem almost cartoonishly villainous, he’s also exactly the kind of cold, cruel, dangerous monster one’s mind conjures when imagining a Nazi.
When he first meets the current, far less evil ambassador from Germany to the Philippines, his curt, mildly threatening demeanor is a sharp reminder of the evil he represents. When he comes to the club where Quezon and his advisors hope to covertly bribe the ambassador into giving the refugees exit visas, our skin crawls as Quezon’s daughter, Baby (Kate Alejandro), pulls him away to dance as a distraction. So, it’s shocking then that when Ebner catches Quezon in the middle of the bribe, he says the regime would be glad to sign the necessary papers because they don’t care how the Jews are removed from Germany. However, that victory is quickly replaced by an even more shocking turn when it turns out that the ultimate bar to saving the planned 10,000 refugees is America itself.
It’s rare to see America depicted as anything but a glorious and powerful liberator in World War II movies, but Quezon’s Game reminds the viewer that America’s history is also one of racism and colonization. Quezon is rightfully horrified when the US turns away a ship full of Jewish refugees early in the film and he’s even more justified in his anger when the government undoes all his hard work by first refusing to allow more than the 210 refugees into the country, then halts all incoming immigration altogether. The racist politician played by Paul Holme may be a caricature, but he is just as representative of a nation’s evils as Ebner.
As Bagatsing’s Quezon so succinctly puts it when explains why he’s so devoted to helping the Jewish refugees, the same ideology drives both America’s push to segregate its citizens and the Nazi’s actions. Yes, one is far more extreme, but by examining World War II through the lens of a country that America colonized, the film reframes and questions America’s self-mythologizing. Schindler’s List and Quezon’s Game are both about how much a single person can do to combat the tides of history, but the latter emphasizes that not even the best people can be powerless in the face of systemic evil.
