Faux folksy

Perfumed Nightmare (d. Kidlat Tahimik)

It’s an accomplished docu-fiction that joyfully mocks western standards of progress while envying them too. What differentiates the Kidlat Tahimik of this film, his first one, I believe, from his latest, viewed and reviewed a few days ago, is that he mixes mock naïveté with an open curiosity of where his antics and journeys would take him. The KT persona of today is a bore because he has fully embraced this naive faux native persona as himself as he now goes around the world wearing an indigenous costume—and it’s precisely that, a costume, a culturally misappropriated persona, for personal fame. It’s revealing that upon meeting Duterte as he was awarded National Artist status last year, a much coveted honor for most since it comes with a lifetime salary, took a selfie with his (symbolic) camera. Nowhere in his latest work is a working critique of the Philippine government but lays the full blame to American and Spanish colonialisms which seems like a calculated evasion. Surprisingly and not so much so, there isn’t any mention of the Marcos regime in this early feature. Made in 1977, KT openly wonders when his country will achieve the same level of progress as the West when the reason for the country’s underdevelopment is the economically disastrous plundering of the nation by Marcos and his friends—for decades. So it would seem this foregrounding of European and American progress is a misrepresentation too because it evades the historical record of the time. What KT misses, and it’s so typical of Philippine intelligentsia, as they always address the white foreigner than their brown country men—the film is mostly in English—, is that this decision not to talk about Philippine politics is also another obstacle to the country’s progress.

#2019 #43