[ REVIEW ]
Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos shows a Colombian-made telephone handset shaped into a shoe during a 1999 interview.
Logic elusive in
Imelda Marcos’ world
During the time Imelda Marcos spent in Hawaii, the former Philippine first lady became the darling of local media, with her impromptu news conferences, orchestrated appearances and singing at public events, and usual syllogistic philosophizing about everything.
"What is beauty? Beauty is love. I love, therefore I am beauty," was a favorite mantra. And apparently still is, in the remarkable documentary "Imelda," by filmmaker Ramona Diaz.
"Imelda"
Not RatedPlaying at Consolidated Pearlridge
Adored by her supporters as if she were a second Eva Peron, and scorned by others as a dragon lady, Marcos sacrifices herself to thorough and objective scrutiny by Diaz, with the confidence that her personal charm and persuasive powers will tilt the portrait in her favor.
"I've been very misunderstood," Marcos says in reference to the public's preoccupation with her 3,000 pairs of shoes. What she's taking about is the fixation on her and her husband's (the late Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos') misdeeds rather than what she views as her extensive good work.
"Imelda" objectively dedicates itself to laying out the record on both counts.
Imelda bashers might object that the film is too kind to its subject, but more casual, less emotionally linked audiences will appreciate the extended consideration given to this complex, and not easily dismissed, figure.
Marcos, we see, is the proverbial dumb-like-a-fox character who knew how to manipulate government officials, friends and enemies or just simply charm the hell out of them.
"I just talk to them like a human being," she says in a maternal tone.
Diaz relies on extensive news footage, photos, Marcos home movies, propaganda clips, interviews with political cronies and opponents and Imelda's friends. But, most important, Diaz allows Marcos to tell most of her story uninterrupted and unscripted.
This way, the audience hears her own accounts about her husband, martial law, the assassination of Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino, the country's political prisoner jails, the millions of dollars she gave to art centers and the like (while the poor were starving) and the New York City office buildings the couple owned.
COMING FROM a prominent family, Marcos lost her mother at the age of 8 in 1938 but eventually became Miss Philippines. She met Gen. MacArthur and was the first to sing the new Filipino national anthem, composed on the spot by Irving Berlin. Imelda, her friends say, was courted by hundreds of the country's most eligible bachelors when she met the young and dashing Ferdinand Marcos.
"I was first attracted by his mind," says Marcos, who married him 11 days later. Surprisingly blunt about her late husband's "roving eye," even early in their marriage, the film strongly suggests that it was by weathering pain and depression in these years that Marcos grew stronger and turned her attention to public life.
In 1966, Ferdinand Marcos was elected president, and his wife's presence was a major plus not only domestically, but internationally as well. We see her gracing glittering occasions at the White House and elsewhere, and she recounts her successful diplomatic visits with everyone from Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Mikhail Gorbachev to Moammar Gadhafi, Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein.
She also explains that her glamorous image -- the wearing of heavily hand-embroidered and very expensive dresses -- was only done to motivate the poor. But after an unsuccessful assassination attempt on her by a man with a machete during a televised speech, she says that "from then on, I decided to be totally selfless."
That meant dedicating herself to "good-works projects" and challenging the Catholic Church on the issue of birth control, which she says resulted in a lowered national birth rate. Dissenters in the film say her contributions were only "cosmetic" to distract publicity from her husband's declaration of martial law that abolished both houses of the congress, put the courts under his control and set up "camps" for political dissidents.
THROUGHOUT THE documentary, Marcos is the enthusiastic star, telling her ascension from an impoverished orphan to sought-after beauty queen, international diplomat and eventually one of the 10 richest women on the planet, which she rationalizes as a gift from a God who knows she is doing good here.
Segments weave seamlessly, and the result is one of good-natured humor, history and a documentary that both sides of the Marcos legacy can appreciate.
There's even a brief segment on the Marcoses in Hawaii after fleeing their homeland in 1986 after the withdrawal of American support for a dictatorship accused of fraudulent election practices and the looting of the national treasury. (Ferdinand Marcos died here in 1989.) There's also footage of her court battles in New York and her eventual return home.
Filmmaker Diaz emphasizes Marcos' pseudo-intellectualizing -- where she often contradicts herself -- in a stream of amusing acts and quotes. But that's something "Imeldaphiles" have known all along. The woman is detached from reality, living in her own world -- which she gladly confirms with rantings and a vacuous gaze when words suddenly escape her.
"Imelda" shows a host of personalities all wrapped in one person: manipulative, secretive, emotionally vulnerable, open, cagey, pragmatic, nobody's fool and a survivor. We're left understanding that a woman who has lived life since adolescence in the spotlight cannot be caught off guard. She has an answer to every question, most filled with rationalizations and obfuscations.
The documentary makes a valiant attempt to map out the woman's psyche. But we never understand her enigmatic logic -- probably because she doesn't, either.
Click for online
calendars and events.
