Module 2 - P. Standefer - “Imelda”

The movie “Imelda” uses two techniques in its presentation. It moves along a linear path of historical footage with interviews of Imelda and people who had met her before mixed in for contrast. This juxtaposition of interviews and historical images makes the filmmaker’s point effectively because it can only have a single result of portraying Imelda Marcos negatively.
The negative portrayal of Imelda is a strange way to present a movie because the public’s view of Imelda has already been debated and decided long before this film was made with the exception of my own views. The very effect the film was trying to create was only effective because the viewers would have agreed and felt negatively towards her before the film started. In this respect, the filmmaker is not making an impact on people.
There are two themes the filmmaker uses to propel the movie along: beauty and corruption. Both themes reveal Imelda’s conception of herself. Imelda is shown to have been physically beautiful in the past when she first married Ferdinand Marcos, but although she has lost some of that physical beauty over time, she has retained her self-image of a beauty queen, often to some comical effect when juxtaposed to other scenes in the film. The interviews she gives concerning beauty seem very condescending and facetious even though Imelda probably believes wholeheartedly what she is saying.
The second theme, corruption, was never embraced by Imelda herself. There was never a point in which she feels that she was corrupt or abused her official positions. She was able to explain away allegations of corruption in motherly tones and concepts such as being the representative of the Philippines so she had to look glamorous or that she was helping the lost Philippines find its way in the world by building a culture center to establish a clear identity.
Both themes pushed the idea that Imelda either could not come to terms with the reality that she is hated by so many people or that what she and Ferdinand Marcos did during his presidency may have been immoral, unjust, or malevolent. For most of the movie, the viewer is bombarded with opinions from Imelda and interviewees which oppose each other. I waffled in my opinion throughout the movie until an interviewee finally said that they believed Imelda could not admit reality. I thought this was a powerful statement in the film because from that point on, I didn’t change opinions and only saw statements from Imelda from that view.
There is one particular concept that goes beyond the narrative of this movie. Imelda’s concept of herself as a mother figure relates both to the character Lucy from “Nailed” as well as to the image of the strong Filipina mother. All three figures see themselves working for the good of others, that their lives are full of hardship and sacrifice, and that in the end their children (Filipinos in the national, spiritual, and familial sense) will recognize them as their benevolent guardians. The first two ideas of motherliness are explicit in this film because Imelda makes it clear in her interviews that she thinks everything she built or did for the Filipino people was entirely for them (good of others) and that the amount of work she did coupled with critics’ attacks on her make her a victim (hardship and sacrifice).