Elias and the crocodile

The subject is a scene from the novel Noli Me Tangere by National Hero Jose Rizal, where Elias is subduing a crocodile by attempting to tie the beast’s jaws shut. The emerging tension of the narrative commences early on with a fishing expedition that fails to haul in any catch. It turns out that a crocodile has been trapped inside the net. In this chapter titled “The Crocodile Fight,” Rizal displays a narrative skill that, while not likely conscious of it, evinces a sensitive filmic eye, attuned
to the vivid power of the camera lens, as the reader is quickly engrossed in what in contemporary terms is known as an “action scene.”

How to seize a fleeting action and freeze it, as it were, into a permanent and obdurate solid material was the daunting challenge which faced the sculptor Graciano T. Nepomuceno.