The Kingmaker, Imelda Marcos – The Kingmaker (2019)

Directed by: Lauren Greenfield | 101 minutes | documentary

The documentary ‘The Kingmaker, Imelda Marcos’ by Lauren Greenfield (‘The Queen of Versailles’) revolves around the former First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos. Fascinating and astonishing. On the political influence of a mater familias, Imelda. The ‘Mother of the Nation’. An influence that is used to this day, despite the many missteps (corruption, eight years of martial law, immeasurable wealth on the backs of its own poor inhabitants, torture) in the past. The end justifies the means with this lady. She shows little sense of reality and still longs for the fairytale world surrounded by excess that she experienced at the side of her husband, the longest-serving president Ferdinand Marcos, in the period 1965-1986. In her own words: “Perception is real, the truth is not.”

A few years after their flight and exile to America (Hawaii), Ferdinand dies and Imelda is allowed to return to her native country. She aims to “clear the name of the Marcos family” and she wants to recreate a “paradise for everyone”. Son Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos is to become the country’s new leader. We see how these steps are taken, with hurdles and resistance from opposition, critical press and ‘people power’. Her influence is still very strong. Finally, we end up in the present with a new tyrant in power, the ruthless Rodrigo Duterte. He landed on the throne through a lot of financial support from the Marcos family. And for what is fair, so it seems only a matter of time before dear son Bongbong will be sworn in as the next president. Just a matter of jailing all opposition…

Who else is featured in ‘The Kingmaker, Imelda Marcos’? Activists, a critical journalist and the chairman of the purge commission tasked with mapping the Marcos clan’s illicit money and art treasures. There is also a picture of the opponents of the Marcosjes, such as Ninoy Aquino, Corazon Aquino, Ninoy’s wife, who succeeded Marcos as president, and her son Noynoy, also briefly president of the country. Yes, without family you get nowhere in this country, as it turns out. Was Ninoy murdered, on the plane stairs, by order of Imelda, after he returned from exile?

We see Imelda on a tour through the slums of Manila, handing out money to the poor. staggering! In her own words, she was ‘the star in the night where the poor always look for’ during her First Lady period. Imelda, with her puff-sleeve dresses as a trademark, brags about how many world leaders she managed to impress. Such as Mao, who she said was so impressed that she “made the end of the Cold War in five minutes.” Of course. The woman who had exotic animals from Africa transferred to Calauit island after all residents were first forced to leave, the woman who also built megalomaniac buildings. Now in his nineties, but still a force to be reckoned with. Frustrating image: Imelda visiting the pediatric cancer ward of a hospital. Seeing is believing, but actually all this is unbelievable. From denounced to back in the picture. Us knows us, the dark side…