Is it delusion or denial?

ow, that hurt. Watched "Imelda" again over at Landmark with D. After the movie I kind of felt ill, though I wasn't sure if it was because of sitting in the theater or having enough of Imelda.

I watched it the first time at NAATA, but had to watch it again, just to see if I was dreaming. The juxtaposition of Imelda's own words with film and other interviews has you spun upside down by the end. And you are still left with the question as to whether Imelda is just delusional and in complete denial or whether she is smart enough to consciously know what she's doing and saying? She even writes down her 10 step philosophical symbols for the world which ends up looking like a convoluted mess.

Obviously she continues to be surrounded by "yes" people who affirm every wild imagination she has, to which even her niece laments that that kind of "support" has held her aunt back. Imelda does mention in her own words how she has the ability to see ugliness and trash and turn her back to it, an ability to block out the reality she does not wish to see.

Chatting with D afterwards, I come to realize that this ability to live in denial of the harshness or reality of the world is not unique to Imelda and that in many ways it's how many Filipinos survive their circumstances.

What I cannot deny is that Imelda certainly knows how to work the charm. She knows how to disarm a person with sweet talk and joking manner that somehow lulls people from Khadafi to Castro to Carter to Kissinger.

Now the next question is, ok so what if Imelda is living in her dream world where the wax "encasing" Ferdinand is an image of him 20 years ago, along with the picture of herself that she distributes, what about her kids? Are Bong-Bong and Imee passing themselves off as "innocents" since they were children? How can they possibly ignore the amount of human rights abuses? And what of Irene? Where has she gone?

I have seen an interview with a Marcos grandson who feels like what his grandparents did was a long time ago and that he was not born so he has no responsibility to that. Which of course, is an easy answer when he's living the high life from all the money his grandparents stole.

So, even at the end of the movie, after listening to Imelda talk about herself in her own words and the words of dozens of others both inside and out of inner family circle, you are left to question reality itself. How she continues to elude and evade any grain of responsibility to the "ugliness" they created in order to form their version of "beauty," a beauty meant for them alone to witness with the core principle that it's ok, because they represent the Filipino people, and the Filipino people are satisfied by simply living vicariously through them.

Somewhere in the lines and circles she draws to explain her world view, she has lured us into a web. Watch the pretty circles as she falls through the cracks of the justice system and slips out the back door.