man" in the small rice farming enclave. Less disposed to Rafael are the Spanish priest (Yul Vazquez) and soldiers being held prisoner in the village on the order of the Indio rebels. With the arrival of the Americans the Spaniards are freed, and only the padre decides to stay, mainly to make stagey observations about the civilizing force of religion and throw Christian shade on the heathens. As an uneasy group dynamic takes shape, so does the contrast between Rafael, a decent man who nevertheless may have been exploiting his farmers, the padre, who has a distinct lack of charity for a man of God, and Lt. Compton, the benevolent occupier who is at the mercy of martial law orders.

Though Sayles seems to be setting up a studyof what it means to be moral during wartime, the theme is too complex to be developed through the film's series of studied, expository two-shot conversations. The padre is quickly reduced to a dogmatic cartoon with contempt for the "partly religious, partly profane" Filipinos, Compton's earnest democratic mandate is undermined by a burned-out general played by Chris Cooper, and Rafael fades into an impotent figurehead as an insurrection plot (his brother and son have both joined the Indio) threatens the entire village. Again, instead of bearing down on the human composure of a vastly complicated historical, political, moral, and emotional scenario, Sayles draws back to the bigger the picture -- so far back you can see Iraq from the Pacific -- and forsakes dramatic tension for aphorism.

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