2013-49565
Imelda
Marcos, known as the Iron Butterfly of the Philippines and was former First
Lady, featured interestingly in this controversial and high profile
documentary. It had extensive information from Imelda’s early life to her being
the first lady. Imelda is every bit the royal: charming, beautiful, and grand. She
is an excellent character study in power, greed and delusion.
The
film showed the lavish and extravagant life she’s living while the country
suffered in poverty. Her 1,060 pairs of shoes filled a museum in the town of
Marikina, the shoe manufacturing capital of the Philippines. She also has a personal dressmaker who made
her numerous gorgeous creations.
But her
charm was unbelievable, which swayed Henry Kissinger, and George Hamilton who
sang "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" substituting
"Imelda" in place of "Baby" in her yacht. In the film, it
was also recounted her encounter with songwriter Irving Berlin who, after
hearing her sing "God Bless the Philippines" (to the tune of "God
Bless America"), composed a new song called "Heaven Help the
Philippines" for Imelda. She was a pioneer in opening doors and played
significant role in international negotiations.
When
the film showed Imelda explaining her loopy theory of cosmos and galactic
order, the room erupted into laughs for its absurdity and deranged figures. It
seems like she was, and still is, delusional and narcissistic. She’s completely
clueless why she’s being accused of crimes and sees herself as a great and
brilliant lady. Imelda sincerely
believed that she had the best interest of her people at heart.
Overall, the film provided rare close-up
interviews of Mrs. Marcos. It showed how mesmerizing, fascinating and complex
she is. She is so engaging and one of the lines that has been deeply embedded
in my brain was, "I
had to be both star and slave; a star for the poor, and a slave to everyone
else."
No comments:
Post a Comment