IMELDA
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2004 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
Both homage and exposé, Ramona S. Diaz's IMELDA is a fascinating look at the life of Imelda Marcos. Although it doesn't forget the clichéd but accurate quote about her wardrobe -- "Mrs. Marcos can change her shoes for eight years without ever wearing the same pair twice." -- it doesn't dwell on it. There's a lot more to Imelda that the covering for her feet. A beauty pageant winner who married Ferdinand Marcos when he a rising political star in the Philippines, she mixed Jackie Kennedy's sense of Camelotian beauty with Martha Stewart's lack of political acumen.
It is said that Ferdinand and Imelda's life was like a soap opera. After her husband was elected president of his country, her life became one filled with pomp and circumstance, as they were greeted like royalty all around the globe. Diaz's handsome film is filled with great archival footage. The sequence of President Johnson and his wife Lady Bird welcoming Ferdinand and Imelda to the White House perfectly captures Imelda at the height of her glory.
In extensive interviews, Imelda describes in detail her views on life and beauty. One Jesuit priest complains that he listened to her talk for four hours solid, but he could not make any sense out of any of her ramblings. She reads to us from her philosophical book, "Circles of Life." In it she says, "It is easy to be beautiful because it is natural." It helps, of course, to be as rich as Croesus, so that you can have the perfect outfits to make you beautiful. Later she tells us, "Beauty is a discipline. Beauty is art."
Although it is easy to go into the film ready to condemn Imelda as a corrupt buffoon, her interviews are generally quite lucid and sometimes downright convincing. Sometimes her opponents list the facts of her reported crimes, but the images and her arguments then plant doubts in your minds about where the truth lies. Typical of these is the claim that she was in such a rush to build a new cultural center that she forced the workmen to not let the concrete dry properly and then left all of the over a dozen dead workers buried in the concrete when the scaffolding collapsed. She argues that none of this is true, and, since we see clips of dead bodies being taken away, the truth remains somewhat elusive and less than obvious.
A frequently funny documentary, the biggest laugh comes in her description of the assassination attempt on her life, which we witness in an old clip. She complains that the big knife used to try to kill her, which left eleven large wounds on her body, was too ugly. She hated the idea of someone trying to murder her with such a hideous looking weapon.
The movie takes us from World War II, through the election of her husband, on to the charges of fraudulent elections, through to the Communist terrorists in the 1980s and all the way up to the present time. It is a mesmerizing and encyclopedic look at a weird but likeable historical figure. As comprehensive as the documentary is, it manages to raise more questions than it can ever answer. It leaves you hungry to know more.
IMELDA runs 1:43. The film is mainly in English, sometimes with English subtitles for clarification. There is some limited Tagalog with English subtitles. It is not rated but would be a G and would be acceptable for any child old enough to be interested in an historical figure.
The film was shown as part of San Jose's Cinequest Film Festival (www.Cinequest.org <http://www.Cinequest.org>), which ran March 3-14, 2004.
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