Movie Review: “The Kingmaker” Shows the Fragility of Democracy
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The Kingmaker (a film by Laren Greenfield)
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.
“The Kingmaker is compelling and thought-provoking. To those who lived through the Marcos dictatorship, the movie feels like a nightmare.”
The strangeness of Calauit Safari park led to Greenfield’s interest in Imelda Marcos, a character who mirrors Jackie Siegel of The Queen of Versailles. Greenfield set out to make a film about a “deposed queen” and her pet safari project; but during the five years it took to make the film, Greenfield realized that the story went beyond the Calauit story. The documentary developed into something larger, something darker. The Kingmaker turned into a political movie, one showing the Marcoses’ rise and fall and comeback in the Philippines. The movie also shows how Democracy had died with the Marcoses, how it triumphed with People Power, but how it once again is fading with the Marcos-funded President Rodrigo Duterte. Imelda, the movie implies, had been the driving force behind Ferdinand Marcos and she is now the force behind Bongbong Marcos -- she is the “Kingmaker.”
The Kingmaker weaves three threads: the rise of the Marcoses’ power in the late 1960s; their comeback in recent years; and third is the foreboding decline of the wildlife safari on Calauit Island, a metaphor for disintegration, of bad-times ahead as the animals deteriorate from inbreeding and lack of care.
The documentary starts in 2014, and we see scenes (contemporary as well as historical) that characterize Imelda. Greenfield had intimate access to Imelda whom we see up-close, preening, getting her face made-up, asking if her stomach is flat. We see her royally handing out money to people. She is amusing; she is outrageous. Cross-cutting scenes from the 1970s we see the young and beautiful Imelda learning how to wield her charm; she had, she claims, ended the Cold War with a peck on Mao Tse Tung’s cheek. We see her with powerful people: Ronald Reagan; Richard Nixon; Lyndon Johnson; Moammar Gaddafi; and more. We learn that she bought a mansion in Beverly Hills and placed this under the name of the actor George Hamilton.
We hear the tape-recording of Ferdinand singing while his mistress, the American actress Dovie Beams, giggles, all of this happening while the couple are in bed (the tape recorder had been tucked under the bed by Dovie Beams herself). This affair supposedly affected Imelda so much that she emerged from the scandal more ambitious, more determined, more ruthless. Imelda’s huge architectural and cultural projects, shopping sprees, and plunder of Philippine treasury are documented. We see some of the multimillion dollar paintings she had acquired and continue to hide; we see the jewelry that she shoved into a diaper box before they fled the Malacanang in 1986. We view the roomful of legal documents related to her numerous lawsuits. We hear her lament because she cannot access her 170 bank accounts. We learn that she and General Ver may have been behind the assassination of Benigno Aquino; Marcos was ill at the time and Imelda and the general were reportedly running the country.
She speaks of how they were “kidnapped” and brought to Hawaii by the Americans after the People Power Revolution of 1986; how the Aquinos refused a hero’s burial for her husband, thus the reason why he was encased in a glass coffin in Ilocos Norte until Duterte fulfilled the Marcoses’ wish and allowed his burial at the Libingan ng Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery) in 2016.
We see Imelda goddess-like as she speaks, arms wide open, of being a mother to all. She makes a Freudian-slip when she refers to having lost her mother at a young age, except she says “money” instead of “mother.”
Aside from seeing Imelda, we also witness chilling testimonies by women who were jailed, sexually abused, and tortured during the Marcos dictatorship. Writer Pete Lacaba painfully recounts his brother Eman’s killing during the Marcos years. Eman was only 27 years old. Former Chairman of the Commission on Elections, Andres Bautista, with an Eliot-Ness-kind of sincerity, recounts his attempts to recover some $5 to $10 billion that the Marcoses had stolen from the Philippines.
The darkness of the documentary continues with current-day chilling scenes of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines under the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte. And there Imelda is, right next to her son: campaigning, directing, waiting for their come-back.
The Kingmaker is compelling and thought-provoking. To those who lived through the Marcos dictatorship, the movie feels like a nightmare -- a walk through a thorny road of history from the Marcos days of the 1970s, followed by a brief moment of light with People Power, but all too soon, descending back to the dark days when freedoms are being curtailed once again.
The Kingmaker is a lesson in the fragility of Democracy, a warning that Democracy can end partly because of “false news” and “revisionism” and political machinations, and the duping of an unvigilant people. Democracy can be lost via legal means after all.
There is a scene showing Filipino students being asked what they thought of the Marcos years, and the young people, innocent but clearly untutored in history, speak of the Marcos era as glory days. This was one of the more frightening scenes to me because those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
For information: thekingmakermovie.com
Upcoming Screenings
CHICAGO, IL: Gene Siskel Film Center
November 15, 2019
164 N State St, Chicago, IL 60601 https://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/the-kingmaker
AIEA, HAWAII: Consolidated Theatres Pearlridge
November 15, 2019
98-1005 Moanalua Rd #600, Aiea, HI 96701 https://www.consolidatedtheatres.com/pearlr…/…/the-kingmaker
HONOLULU, HAWAII: Consolidated Theatres Koko Marina
November 15, 2019
7192 Kalanianaole Hwy Suite AB100, Honolulu, HI 96825 https://www.consolidatedtheatres.com/kokoma…/…/the-kingmaker
ORANGE, CA : AMC Orange 30
November 15, 2019
20 City Blvd W Suite E, Orange, CA 92868 https://www.amctheatres.com/movies/the-kingmaker-61865
PHILADELPHIA, PA: Landmark Ritz at the Bourse
November 15, 2019
400 Ranstead Street, on Fourth Street between Market & Chestnut St, Philadelphia, PA 19106 https://www.landmarktheatres.com/…/…/film-info/the-kingmaker
DALLAS, TX: Angelika Film Center Dallas
November 22, 2019
5321 E Mockingbird Ln Suite 230, Dallas, TX 75206 https://www.angelikafilmcenter.com/dallas/film/the-kingmaker
SANTA BARBARA, CA: The Hitchcock Cinema & Public House
November 22, 2019
371 South Hitchcock Way, Santa Barbara, CA 93105 https://www.metrotheatres.com/…/The-Hitchcock-Cinema-and-Pu…
HOUSTON, TX: AMC Studio 30
November 29, 2019
11801 S Sam Houston Pkwy E, Houston, TX 77089 https://www.amctheatres.com/movies/the-kingmaker-61865
SEATTLE-TACOMA, WA: Independent Grand Illusion Cinema
November 29, 2019
1403 NE 50th St, Seattle, WA 98105 http://www.grandillusioncinema.org/
ROCHESTER, NY: Florin Little Theater
December 10, 2019
240 East Ave, Rochester, NY 14604 https://thelittle.org/now-showing
COLUMBUS, OH: Gateway Film Center
December 13, 2019
1550 N High St, Columbus, OH 43201 https://gatewayfilmcenter.org/now-showing/
WINSTON-SALEM, NC: Nova Aperture Cinema
December 13, 2019
311 W 4th St, Winston-Salem, NC 27101 https://www.aperturecinema.com/
EUGENE, OR: Nova Broadway Metro
December 13, 2019
43 W Broadway, Eugene, OR 97401 https://broadwaymetro.com/films/the-kingmaker-2019
ITHACA, NY: Nova Cinemapolis
December 13, 2019
120 E Green St, Ithaca, NY 14850 https://cinemapolis.org/film/the-kingmaker/
LOUISVILLE, KY: Village 8 Cinema
December 13, 2019
4014 Dutchmans Ln #16, Louisville, KY 40207 http://www.village8.com/v8_home.htm
OMAHA, NE: Balcony Film Streams at the Ruth Sokoloff Theater
December 13, 2019
1340 Mike Fahey St, Omaha, NE 68102 https://filmstreams.org/films/the-kingmaker
ALBANY, CA (SF area): Landmark Albany Twin
December 13, 2019
1115 Solano Ave, Albany, CA 94706 https://www.landmarktheatres.com/san-francisco…/albany-twin…
SAN FRANCISCO, CA: Embarcadero Center Cinema
December 13, 2019
Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, CA 94111 https://www.landmarktheatres.com/…/embarcadero-center-cinem…
SPOKANE, WA: Independent Magic Lantern Theatre
December 13, 2019
25 W Main Ave #125, Spokane, WA 99201 https://www.magiclanternonmain.com/
WASHINGTON, D.C.: Landmark E Street Cinema
December 13, 2019
555 11th St NW, Washington, DC 20004 https://www.landmarktheatres.com/washington…/e-street-cinema
Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
Cecilia Manguerra Brainard is the author and editor of over 20 books. Her three novels (When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, Magdalena, and The Newspaper Widow) have been published by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House (http://bit.ly/USTPHOrderForm). Cecilia's official website is https://ceciliabrainard.com.