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Movie Review “The Kingmaker” in Positively Filipino, by #CeciliaBrainard

November 13, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

Movie Review: “The King­mak­er” Shows the Fragili­ty of Democ­ra­cy, review by Cecil­ia Brainard, pub­lished in Pos­i­tive­ly Filipino:

http://www.positivelyfilipino.com/…/movie-review-the-kingma…

“There was a false rumor that Imel­da Mar­cos had fund­ed the doc­u­men­tary The King­mak­er. In fact, the movie depicts Imel­da Mar­cos, the cen­tral char­ac­ter, as a Marie-Antoinette-type with an exces­sive­ly lav­ish lifestyle, vora­cious greed, lack of gen­uine empa­thy, and sin­gle-mind­ed­ness in achieving pow­er by first schem­ing with her hus­band, the Philip­pine dic­ta­tor Fer­di­nand Mar­cos, and now her son, Bong­bong Marcos.
To bet­ter under­stand the film, one needs to know that the film­mak­er, Lau­ren Green­field, had made the 2012 doc­u­men­tary, The Queen of Ver­sailles, about the bil­lion­aire Siegel fam­i­ly and their sur­re­al world of mate­r­i­al excess. Jack­ie Siegel, for instance, owned a $17,000 pair of Guc­ci shoes.

The same sort of mate­r­i­al excess drew Green­field into mak­ing The King­mak­er. She had learned about a pet project of Imel­da Mar­cos, the Island of Calauit in the Philip­pines, which is pop­u­lat­ed by giraffes, zebras, gazelles, impalas, and oth­er exot­ic ani­mals. In the 1970s Imel­da Mar­cos had gone on a Kenya safari and decid­ed to bring to the Philip­pines some of the ani­mals she had seen. A bribe was paid since the import of such ani­mals was pro­hib­it­ed; the Island of Calauit was cleared of its human inhab­i­tants, and Imelda’s Safari Park project was born. The res­i­dents who were dis­placed from Calauit still recall with bit­ter­ness how they had been uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly dis­patched from their homes.… (con­tin­ue read­ing in Pos­i­tive­ly Fil­ipino (http://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/movie-review-the-kingmaker-shows-the-fragility-of-democracy ” )

Tags: Philip­pines, Fil­ipino, Mar­cos, Pol­i­tics, His­to­ry, doc­u­men­tary, film, movie, #Lau­renGeen­field

Filed Under: Nonfiction, Uncategorized Tagged With: documentary, Filipino, history, Imelda Marcos, Marcos, movie, Philippine, politics, review, The Kingmaker

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Welcome!

I am a daugh­ter of the Philip­pines and an adopt­ed daugh­ter of Amer­i­ca. I have also trav­eled to many places so I am also a daugh­ter of the Earth. My expe­ri­ences have found their way into my sto­ries, which try to depict char­ac­ters caught in impor­tant moments in their lives, sit­u­a­tions that force them to act, make deci­sions, change. I try to see the world from my own point of view, not the dom­i­nant West­ern one, thus my inter­est in his­to­ry, cul­ture, and set­ting. But my char­ac­ters car­ry my sto­ries; they are the most impor­tant in my sto­ry-telling. I have to dive deep into them to under­stand their human­i­ty – their good­ness as well as their bad­ness, their beau­ty as well as their ugli­ness. Just like us. Just like each of us. I need to know where they came from, where they are now, so I under­stand where they are going. Just like us.

Please read my full biog­ra­phy here

 

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