Director Lauren Greenfield (‘The Queen of Versailles’, ‘Generation Wealth’) finds the perfect subject in the latest of her documentary portraits of conspicuous consumption: Imelda Marcos.
The Kingmaker is an unsettling exposé of the 90-year-old wife of the former leader of the Philippines. In initial interviews, Marcos is allowed to tell her version of events, an idealised portrait of a perfect reign cut short by needless intervention. Yet this is quickly undermined, as a broader picture emerges of the cruelty and decadence of her husband Ferdinand’s reign and her willing participation in its excesses.
More than a camp portrait of a ridiculous shoe obsessive, ‘The Kingmaker’ shows how political power and capital are shored up and the Marcos family are still pulling the strings to this day.
★★★★★ “A larger, tragic picture of tyranny and corruption in the Philippines that might stand alongside Josh Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing” - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
