“The Kingmaker” documents the rise, fall and rise of Imelda Marcos

By Y.F.

“DURING MY TIME, there were no beggars,” Imelda Marcos says. Driving through the slums of Manila, her chauffeured car stops at a red light; she leans out of the window and proffers a wad of cash to a stranger. In what was called a “conjugal dictatorship”, Mrs Marcos ruled the Philippines with her husband, Ferdinand, from 1965-86.

For Lauren Greenfield, a film-maker and artist who has spent most of her career chronicling the foibles of the wealthy, Mrs Marcos is the perfect subject. She has a notorious predilection for shoes, $80,000-dresses and bullet-proof bras. She splurged on multi-million dollar buildings in Manhattan—she considered purchasing the Empire State Building, before deciding that it was “too ostentatious”—and other ludicrous building projects around the world. In 1976 she imported 102 wild animals from Kenya to create a private safari park on Calauit Island, displacing the 254 families who lived there. With “The Kingmaker”, a new documentary, Mrs Greenfield hoped to explore the life of this colourful and controversial figure.

Using archive footage as well as interviews with Mrs Marcos’s friends and peers, the first part of the film documents her ascendancy. She met Ferdinand Marcos in 1954, when he was an up-and-coming congressman, and they were soon married; when he ran for president in 1965, her beauty was an electoral asset. After Ferdinand was installed in office, she undertook state visits on his behalf (he did not leave the Philippines partly for fear of a coup and partly so that he could enjoy the company of women other than his wife); Mrs Marcos is shown embracing Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein as well as Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan. In the film, she reflects on charming these powerful men. She says that Mao Zedong once kissed her hand and said, “Mrs Marcos, in five minutes you started the end of the cold war.” She says that she believes she could “go around the world and achieve world peace”.

“The Kingmaker” gradually complicates and contradicts Mrs Marcos’s version of events. Activists and opposition party members speak about the oppressive rule of the Marcos administration, which jailed, tortured and killed thousands of Filipinos. Benigno Aquino, who was president from 2010-16, is interviewed. His father, Benigno Aquino Jr, was the leading figure of the opposition party and was imprisoned for seven years. Allowed to flee the country with his family in 1980, he was assassinated upon his return in 1983; his death sparked a mass protest movement. The Marcos family was eventually forced from power in 1986 after an election they had allegedly rigged against Aquino’s widow, Corazon. Ferdinand died in disgrace in Honolulu in 1989, and Mrs Marcos went on trial in America on racketeering charges (she was acquitted on all counts).

In the film’s opening sequences, the democracy that was established in the country after 1985 seems robust. A commission to recover the estimated $10bn that the Marcos family looted from the country’s treasury has returned $4bn through seized assets, and its work is being used as a model for other countries. Last year Mrs Marcos was found guilty of fraud by a Philippine court (while she appeals the verdict she cannot be arrested).

But by the end of the film, it all seems to be unravelling, with much of the country nostalgic for strongman rule. “The Kingmaker” shows the family’s gradual return to public life and political influence. Mrs Marcos moved back to the Philippines in 1991, running for Congress and winning. Her daughter, Imee, made a successful bid for office; her son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, ran for vice president in 2016. “The Kingmaker” explores the Marcos family’s involvement in Rodrigo Duterte’s successful campaign for president; he, in turn, has said that Bongbong is leadership material. In November 2016 Mr Duterte reburied Ferdinand Marcos in the Heroes’ Cemetery in Manila.

“The Kingmaker” takes care to expose the hypocrisy of Mrs Marcos’s appeals to the impoverished while leading a life of ostentatious wealth. Yet to her supporters, her profligacy only seems to fortify her promises of being their benefactor. Throughout the film, she insists that she is the “mother” of the Philippines.

“The Kingmaker” is released in America on November 8th