20040628
movie review: Imelda
one more movie to see, ahahaha. ...
For a Regal Pariah, Despite It All, the Shoe Is Never on the Other Foot
By Stephen Holden
Published: June 9, 2004
Correction appended at the end of this article.
If there's a useful lesson to be gained from studying the life and career of Imelda Marcos, it is a demonstration that if you act like royalty and believe that you are royalty, the world will treat you as royalty. All it takes is ego, show business savvy and a barrel of bald-faced chutzpah.
In Ramona S. Diaz's documentary portrait "Imelda," Mrs. Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines, proudly refers to herself as a star. She repeats the words beauty, truth and love so many times in the extended interview around which the movie is spun that they become a kind of self-protective mantra. Of those three words, beauty is by far the most important. Mrs. Marcos, after all, is a former beauty queen whose looks carried her far. (The movie opens today at Film Forum in New York.)
Now in her 70's, she's still a handsome woman with the bearing of a monarch. Her obsession with beauty extends to everything that touches her. Recalling an assassination attempt in 1972 by a right-wing fanatic wielding a machete, she complains that a machete is such an "ugly" weapon.
Last year the Philippine Supreme Court found her guilty of funneling more than $600 million from the Philippine government into Swiss bank accounts and awarded the entire amount to the government. She also faces 150 other court cases. But even under siege she projects an unruffled regality. When her troubles are mentioned, the strongest emotion she can muster is a huffy indignation that her motives might be thought anything but noble.
To exist in the bubble of grandiosity that surrounds Mrs. Marcos is to live free of shame or guilt. She justifies her legendary spending on shoes and hand-embroidered gowns by asserting that the mass of poor people in the Philippines needed her as role model and inspiration for pursuing a better lifestyle. In the movie's daffiest moments she outlines her simplistic cosmology in childish sketches.
As a personality study "Imelda" is a devastating portrait of how power begets self-delusion. It must be said, however, that through it all Mrs. Marcos exudes considerable charm and even a flickering sense of humor. When she is shown posing dramatically in front of her dead husband's open coffin, it's clear that her show business canniness never deserts her.
As a documentary that digs for new political dirt, however, "Imelda" offers no new revelations. Aside from the interview, the movie is a straightforward biography of Mrs. Marcos and the history of the Philippines since World War II.
We learn that she married Ferdinand Marcos, the future president, only 11 days after meeting him, and that her campaigning among the poor is credited as instrumental in his winning the presidency at age 36. After his inauguration, on Dec. 30, 1965, the Marcoses presided as the country's first couple for 20 years. Their honeymoon with the press and the United States government lasted well beyond the 1960's. At one point Life magazine pantingly dubbed Mrs. Marcos "the Jackie Kennedy of Asia." The vintage film clips of Mrs. Marcos charming world leaders, from Richard M. Nixon to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, suggest that at one time she exerted considerable diplomatic clout.
But the tide turned against the couple in the 80's. In 1986 Marcos was defeated for the presidency by Corazon C. Aquino, and the Marcoses were forced to leave the country. Ferdinand Marcos died in Honolulu in 1989. Two years later his wife was allowed to return to Manila to bury him.
Mrs. Marcos offers some amusing anecdotes. She recalls meeting Gen. Douglas MacArthur and singing "God Bless America," substituting "the Philippines" for "America." Irving Berlin, who was on hand, objected, and that night composed an alternative anthem for her to perform the next day.
After the assassination attempt, Mrs. Marcos recalls, she dedicated herself to leading a "totally selfless" life. Just how selfless is a matter of interpretation, and the movie refrains from judgment. Were the many grand structures she built, including a film center that was never used, created for the public benefit? Or were they monuments to herself, the manifestations of a condition that one commentator wryly describes as "an edifice complex"?
IMELDA
Produced and directed by Ramona S. Diaz; in English and Tagalog, with English subtitles; director of photography, Ferne Pearlstein; edited by Leah Marino; music by TAO Music, Grace Nono and Bob Aves; released by Unico Entertainment. At the Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village. Running time: 103 minutes. This film is not rated.
Correction: June 12, 2004, Saturday
A film review on Wednesday about "Imelda," a documentary on Imelda Marcos, misstated the age of her husband, Ferdinand, when he was elected president of the Philippines in 1965. He was 48 (36 was her age at the time). ¶ 6/28/2004 08:45:00 PM
For a Regal Pariah, Despite It All, the Shoe Is Never on the Other Foot
By Stephen Holden
Published: June 9, 2004
Correction appended at the end of this article.
If there's a useful lesson to be gained from studying the life and career of Imelda Marcos, it is a demonstration that if you act like royalty and believe that you are royalty, the world will treat you as royalty. All it takes is ego, show business savvy and a barrel of bald-faced chutzpah.
In Ramona S. Diaz's documentary portrait "Imelda," Mrs. Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines, proudly refers to herself as a star. She repeats the words beauty, truth and love so many times in the extended interview around which the movie is spun that they become a kind of self-protective mantra. Of those three words, beauty is by far the most important. Mrs. Marcos, after all, is a former beauty queen whose looks carried her far. (The movie opens today at Film Forum in New York.)
Now in her 70's, she's still a handsome woman with the bearing of a monarch. Her obsession with beauty extends to everything that touches her. Recalling an assassination attempt in 1972 by a right-wing fanatic wielding a machete, she complains that a machete is such an "ugly" weapon.
Last year the Philippine Supreme Court found her guilty of funneling more than $600 million from the Philippine government into Swiss bank accounts and awarded the entire amount to the government. She also faces 150 other court cases. But even under siege she projects an unruffled regality. When her troubles are mentioned, the strongest emotion she can muster is a huffy indignation that her motives might be thought anything but noble.
To exist in the bubble of grandiosity that surrounds Mrs. Marcos is to live free of shame or guilt. She justifies her legendary spending on shoes and hand-embroidered gowns by asserting that the mass of poor people in the Philippines needed her as role model and inspiration for pursuing a better lifestyle. In the movie's daffiest moments she outlines her simplistic cosmology in childish sketches.
As a personality study "Imelda" is a devastating portrait of how power begets self-delusion. It must be said, however, that through it all Mrs. Marcos exudes considerable charm and even a flickering sense of humor. When she is shown posing dramatically in front of her dead husband's open coffin, it's clear that her show business canniness never deserts her.
As a documentary that digs for new political dirt, however, "Imelda" offers no new revelations. Aside from the interview, the movie is a straightforward biography of Mrs. Marcos and the history of the Philippines since World War II.
We learn that she married Ferdinand Marcos, the future president, only 11 days after meeting him, and that her campaigning among the poor is credited as instrumental in his winning the presidency at age 36. After his inauguration, on Dec. 30, 1965, the Marcoses presided as the country's first couple for 20 years. Their honeymoon with the press and the United States government lasted well beyond the 1960's. At one point Life magazine pantingly dubbed Mrs. Marcos "the Jackie Kennedy of Asia." The vintage film clips of Mrs. Marcos charming world leaders, from Richard M. Nixon to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, suggest that at one time she exerted considerable diplomatic clout.
But the tide turned against the couple in the 80's. In 1986 Marcos was defeated for the presidency by Corazon C. Aquino, and the Marcoses were forced to leave the country. Ferdinand Marcos died in Honolulu in 1989. Two years later his wife was allowed to return to Manila to bury him.
Mrs. Marcos offers some amusing anecdotes. She recalls meeting Gen. Douglas MacArthur and singing "God Bless America," substituting "the Philippines" for "America." Irving Berlin, who was on hand, objected, and that night composed an alternative anthem for her to perform the next day.
After the assassination attempt, Mrs. Marcos recalls, she dedicated herself to leading a "totally selfless" life. Just how selfless is a matter of interpretation, and the movie refrains from judgment. Were the many grand structures she built, including a film center that was never used, created for the public benefit? Or were they monuments to herself, the manifestations of a condition that one commentator wryly describes as "an edifice complex"?
IMELDA
Produced and directed by Ramona S. Diaz; in English and Tagalog, with English subtitles; director of photography, Ferne Pearlstein; edited by Leah Marino; music by TAO Music, Grace Nono and Bob Aves; released by Unico Entertainment. At the Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village. Running time: 103 minutes. This film is not rated.
Correction: June 12, 2004, Saturday
A film review on Wednesday about "Imelda," a documentary on Imelda Marcos, misstated the age of her husband, Ferdinand, when he was elected president of the Philippines in 1965. He was 48 (36 was her age at the time). ¶ 6/28/2004 08:45:00 PM
