The documentary on Mrs. Marcos was really well put-together! Basically, she's crazy and is in denial that she and her husband embezzled millions from a third world country and foreign investors, and had tens of thousands of political prisoners locked up. She's so out of touch with reality that her mantra of "beauty, truth, and God" illustrates how detached she is from the economic situations of the people that both love and hate her. And though the filmmaker interviewed family members, former colleagues, diplomats, political prisoners, etc., there was really no need -- Imelda clearly shone thought in her own words as loo-HOO-ny!
There were naturally the personal connections. Grandma left the Philippines the year before Marcos declared martial law, and Mom left the year after. We didn't visit until the year the dictatorship ended and Corrie Aquino was officially recognized as president. I remember visiting Quezon City as a little 7-year-old, knowing that she was president but not knowing all the previous history, just that Marcos wasn't the greatest political leader. And knowing we weren't travelling too far south because there were guerillas (that was my first introduction to homonyms -- I thought Dad meant gorillas, and pictured them lurking in the jungles). I remember Clark AFB -- and 15 years later, even wrote a paper on the US policy of containment that created the "need" for an American presence that blindly excused all the Marcos human rights abuses because at least he wasn't communist ...
It's a little tragic how the second generation knows so little because the first generation is so reluctant to talk about anything! And tragic too that the second generation sometimes doesn't care until it's too late to get most of the oral histories.
And of course, the shoes. 3000, was it? There's an interview with one of Imelda's nieces, saying "You have to understand Filipinas!" LOL -- I know I have a ton of shoes, so does Mom, so did Grandma. ;-) Maybe there's a little bit of learned culture there ... Anyhoo, since the shoes are the only thing people know about Imelda, the fabulous voice-over in the beginning is Imelda's son saying "Forget about the shoes, get beyond the shoes." Good advice.
Ah, and Garden State. It's not on my Top Ten List or anything, but I liked this movie for the simple reason that it's my life! The sudden parental death; the hometown friends who live in such a vastly different world and haven't moved; the childhoods so crazy that strangers don't believe true stories because the lies are more comforting ... There were some awkward moments where the comedy was tragic and I couldn't laugh, and moments where the tragedy was almost hilarious. Some scenes are really disturbing, some are simply wacky, some awkward, some sad, some funny, some weird. Mais c'est la vie, n'est-ce pas?
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