The Kingmaker (2019) -
The film is anchored by Imelda herself, who, in her eighties, remains a master of self-mythologizing. She sits in gilded rooms, handing out crisp banknotes to impoverished children and describing herself as the "mother" of her nation. Greenfield allows Imelda to speak at length, capturing her eerie ability to rewrite history in real-time. To Imelda, the brutal decade of Martial Law under her husband, Ferdinand Marcos, was a "golden age" of order and beauty. She doesn't just deny the human rights abuses and the billions of dollars looted from the treasury; she seems to have genuinely convinced herself that they never happened.
As the narrative shifts to the present day, we see the true "kingmaking" in action. The film meticulously tracks the Marcos family’s return from exile and their calculated climb back to the heights of power. It illustrates how they utilized social media, disinformation campaigns, and strategic alliances (most notably with Rodrigo Duterte) to rehabilitate their image for a younger generation that didn't live through the atrocities. The Kingmaker (2019)
The Kingmaker (2019), directed by Lauren Greenfield, is a chilling and masterful study of the "post-truth" era, masquerading as a biographical documentary. It centers on Imelda Marcos, the former First Lady of the Philippines, whose steel-magnolia persona and bottomless cavern of shoes have long been the stuff of international caricature. However, Greenfield peels back the aesthetic of excess to reveal something far more dangerous: the weaponization of nostalgia and the terrifying resilience of dynastic power. The film is anchored by Imelda herself, who,
By the end, The Kingmaker feels less like a history lesson and more like a warning. It’s a portrait of how wealth can buy a second chance at a narrative, and how easily a populace can be swayed by the promise of a glorious past that never truly existed. It is a haunting reminder that while dictators may die, the machinery they build—and the myths they spin—can be immortal. To Imelda, the brutal decade of Martial Law
The brilliance of the documentary lies in its structural pivot. While the first half feels like a profile of an eccentric, fallen royal, the second half transforms into a political thriller. Greenfield juxtaposes Imelda’s lavish recollections with harrowing testimony from survivors of Martial Law—women who were tortured and activists who saw their friends disappear. This creates a nauseating friction between Imelda’s "perception of reality" and the lived reality of the Filipino people.