Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars

ISSN: 0007-4810 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/rcra19

“A filmmaker and his film”

Craig Geoffrey Scharlin

To cite this article: Craig Geoffrey Scharlin (1980) “A filmmaker and his film”, Bulletin of
Concerned Asian Scholars, 12:3, 30-32, DOI: 10.1080/14672715.1980.10405585
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.1980.10405585

Published online: 05 Jul 2019.

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"A Filmmaker and His Film
by Craig Geoffrey Scharlin
I'm writing this review as a new-found devotee of film-
maker Kidlat Tahimik and as an old friend of Eric de Guia. I say
this to layout my prejudices and at the same time to try to
explain my amazement at the transformation of Eric de Guia
into Kidlat Tahimik.
Throughout a beautiful spring and summer in 1970 Eric
and I spent many hours together in Paris, walking the boule-
vards, sitting in open cafes drinking our espressos-most of the
usual things people do in Paris plus even romping together at a
bizarre festival held on the outskirts of Paris. Our favorite
meeting place, however, was Eric's apartment on the Ave. de la
Motte Picquet, where Eric had created his own special world.
In those days we talked about a lot of things, even the
possibilities of his someday becoming president of the Philip-
pines. Why not? Eric seemed to possess the proper credentials
for such ambitious thoughts: University of the Philippines grad-
uate and student body president, Wharton graduate and then a
research analyst forthe "prestigious" O.E.C.D. (Organization
of Economic Cooperation and Development). Eric was even a
friend of former British Prime Minister Wilson's family with
whom he stayed in London.
However, we had other discussions, more often and of a
much more serious nature. We talked about Eric's frustrations
working at the O.E.C.D. preparing an extensive analysis of the
fertilizer industry of the Philippines. We talked about a play he
wanted to write, about a woman he loved in Germany, about his
desire to bring a jeepney (Philippine mini-bus) to Paris! A
jeepney to Paris? There was a fire burning inside of Eric and it
wanted to come out. Eric is short, very dark, with eyes and smile
that literally light up a room. He wanted the people of Paris,
whom he had grown so fond of, to understand the Filipino spirit
pent up inside him, the one that was crying from deep inside to
come out. Would the jeepney do the trick?
Well, I left Paris and didn't see Eric again for eight years. I
visited his family in Baguio, Philippines, several times but our
paths seemed to have just missed. I learned from his mother that
he had quit O.E.C.D., was working on a play and, yes, had
actually taken a jeepney to Paris.
30
Cinema Review
MABABANGONG BANGUNGOT, a.k.a. The Per-
fumed Nightmare, Le Cauchemar Parfume, Der Par-
fumierte Alptraum, La Pesadilla Perfumada, a film by
Kidlat Tahimik, formerly Eric de Guia
Then to my surprise, about a year ago, I noticed quite by
accident, an advertisement that the Pacific Film Archives here in
Berkeley was showing a film titled The Perfumed Nightmare
made by one Kidlat Tahimik. I received a phone call the next
day and on the other end was Kidlat/Eric, saying he was in
Berkeley showing his film and looking for a place to sleep with
Fraulein Katrina and their son, the real Kidlat Tahimik. In Paris
when I needed a place to sleep it was Eric who opened his
apartment to me, and now, eight years hence, I could return the
favor.
But the person who came to my house was no longer Eric
de Guia, suit-and-tie economist and potential candidate for
President of the Philippines, but Kidlat Tahimik, short-cropped,
bowl-shaped lfugao haircut, sandaled feet, old baggy sharkskin
pants, Ifugao fertility ring hanging round his neck, a shirt that
was old and quite beyond description. The look in his eye and
the smile on his face told me immediately that the fire deep
inside had finally burst out.
The transformation of Eric to Kidlat, however, did not
completely become clear to me until after I had viewed his film,
Mababangong Bangungot-The Perfumed Nightmare. This is
the first film of Kidlat Tahimik who had no formal training in
filmmaking. The filming took place in early 1975 in the Philip-
pines and in Europe. Kidlat readily admits that upon finishing
shooting in the Philippines and departing for Europe with a mass
of exposed and undeveloped footage, he really had no idea what
he had captured on film. It was only in the next two years that the
story of Kidlat Tahimik and his perfumed nightmare evolved on
the editing table in Munich, Germany. All the while, Kidlat was
simultaneously learning the metier of filmmaking.
Along the way Kidlat Tahimik has made a movie of major
importance. And this is not said subjectively. The kudos have
poured in from around the world, prizes from international film
festivals have already been presented. The Perfumed Nightmare
had its premier at the Berlin Film Festival on June 25, 1977,
where it was awarded the "Prix de la Critique Internationale,"
by the FIRPRESCI Jury (Federation internationale de la presse
cinematographique) composed of eleven film critics. This is the
award presented to the most outstanding film by a new film-
maker. The film also received the Special Mention of the OCIC
(Catholic Jury) at the same festival, as well as the recommenda-
tion of the Interfilm Jury (Ecumenical).
But the importance of Kidlat's efforts go far beyond these
fine awards. First, the film was completed with a miniscule
budget of about $ 10,000 and a gigantic budget of optimistic
energy. One story Kidlat loves to tell his audiences is about how
his film was talked about at the L.A. Film Festival: "In the
Philippines people always say, 'Oh, you have to see this new
American flick; it cost $25 million, it's really great!' And then I
found myself in the heart of American film industry, Holly-
wood, where they actually make these $25 million dreams, and
people were saying, 'You've got to see this new Filipino film. It
only cost $ 10,000; it's really great.' "
Kidlat Tahimik has broken all the rules in regard to film-
making, and particularly filmmaking in the Philippines, predo-
minantly Hollywood-oriented, where it is not uncommon today
to see a top-rated Filipino movie stamped "This film was made
in U.S.A." just to increase the box office revenues. By so
doing, he has presented the world with an amazingly original,
engrossing and beautiful work. It would not be too far-fetched to
suggest that The Perfumed Nightmare is the first truly indigen-
ous Filipino movie.
Secondly, by making this movie Kidlat has thrown off his
colonial bonds and given us such a clear and revealing picture of
a Filipino, told by a Filipino, from deep in his heart, that we
cannot help but marvel at his accomplishment. Rarely has an
artist created such an accurate self-portrait.
The film is about a young Filipino, Kidlat, who earns his
living driving a jeepney. The jeepney is the Filipino people's
taxi. Originally made from the thousands of U.S. army jeeps left
in the Philippines after World War 11 by the Americn forces, the
jeepney is one of the best examples of Filipino native genius
adapting to the 20th century. The Filipinos took these discarded
machines used for war and turned them into a most useful social
vehicle. They lengthened the back so many people can pile in
and they decorated the entire vehicle to give it a feeling of life.
One of the most memorable scenes in the movie was shot inside
the Sarao Jeepney factory in Manila. Possibly the Rolls Royce
factory in England is the only other car company in the world
that still really produces hand crafted bodies. Kidlat's camera
takes us on a tour of this most remarkable factory, skillfully
blending the melodic beat of Kalintang Ifugao music with the
pounding and shaping of the jeepney body by the Filipino
craftsmen. Kidlat's voice comments proudly in the background
that at the height of the oil crisis, while the production of
international automakers was on the decline, the Sarao jeepney
factory was increasing its production to a record number of five
vehicles a weekl ,
As the young jeepney driver, Kidlat is obsessed by a dream
of visiting America, and especially Cape Canaveral. He always
listens to "Voice of America" on the radio in his barrio, where
he is also president of the Werner Von Braun Fan Club. He
writes letters to "Dear Mr. Voice of America" requesting "the
first words your great American astronaut said when he landed
on the moon."
Kidlat's camera follows his jeepney on its daily route
giving the viewer a most revealing and intimate impression of
daily life in a Philippine barrio.
31
When you make a feature-length color movie for under
$10,000 you don't hire actors. The people in the movie are all
just playing themselves and seem to be having as much fun
letting Kidlat capture them in their daily routines as Kidlat
seems to have making the movie.
In the best sense of cinema verite Kidlat uses a flash-back
to show the day of his own circumcision at the age of 12. To film
this most remarkable scene Kidlat went back to his father's
barrio in the province of Laguna to photograph the actual scene
as it still takes place today in a forest just outside the barrio. By
juxtaposing such varying images as the "Voice of America"
permeating the background noise of the barrio with the poignant
circumcision scene, Kidlat helps the viewer better understand
the contradictions that play such an important role in forming
the gestalt of today's Filipino.
One day Kidlat's dream to visit the "promised land" is
fulfilled. An American buys Kidlat's jeepney to take with him as
F LM FESTIVAL
P S
cXi-cll~1'=..
A Jeepney. Reproduced from a Tvshirt that was sold by Kidlat to help
defray costs.
a promotional gimmick and employs Kidlat to accompany him,
first to Paris and eventually to America. Kidlat is fascinated by
the modem technology of Paris, where his job is filling up the
chewing gum machines owned by his American millionaire
boss. Kidlat befriends a Parisian street vendor of eggs whom he
calls Lola (Grandmother). She tells him of her fears that she
cannot survive the market that is being flooded by cheap syn-
thetic eggs. One day he goes to visit Lola and she is no longer
there. The space where she parked her cart is soon to be de-
molished to make way for an expanding supermarche across the
street!
Kidlat also makes a pilgrimage to Germany, the "land of
Werner Von Braun," where he helps a pregnant Bavarian wom-
an in distress. And finally Kidlat is offered the chance to be the
first Filipino to fly supersonic aboard the Concorde flight from
Paris to New York.
 But little by little Kidlat's colonial-based dream of utopia
becomes a perfumed nightmare . He eventually discovers that in
the world outside his barrio there are plenty of supermarkets and
supertechnologies but no superparadise.
Kidlat Tahimik has not made a film that deals with political
issues per se. If you are looking for a film that talks directly
about martial law in the Philippines, the effects of Western
imperialist exploitation on a third world country, malnutrition,
revolutionary political organizations or even nuclear power
plants being built on the side of an active volcano, you are not
going to find it in The Perfumed Nightmare. Kidlat's film is a
personal tale about the growth and change of one individual.
This is not to say however that The Perfumed Nightmare is
apolitical. Far from it. Kidlat seems to be acutely aware of the
environment in the Philippines he is photographing. He never
misses the most subtle nuances which his shots of the Philip-
pines contrast markedly with his shots in Europe, which seem a
bit staged and stylized. Kidlat can comment most perspicuously
on martial law by photographing a marching contingent of
uniformed public nurses and commenting that everyone is rep-
resented in this parade-even "those who promote uniform-
ity." Another example of Kidlat's skillful eye and use of the
understatement to highlight a political and economic reality
happens while Kidlat is relieving himself next to his jeepney just
off the highway. The camera zooms back to reveal a large
billboard just across the road with the familiar American cow-
boy and the slogan "Marlboro Country" printed in enormous
letters .
The Perfumed Nightmare , as a highly symbolic moral play,
has the audacity to have a good time with some very serious
political issues. The American businessman, played by Kidlat's
lanky German cameraman, is attired in the scenes in the Philip-
pines in long black knee socks, khaki shorts, a smallish ranger
hat and "shades." Over 6' 3" tall, the American entrepreneur-
his legs literally pushing his bony white knees right out of
Kidlat's jeepney as he rides to Manila with Kidlat and a jeepney
filled with an assortment of people and animals- is poignantly
comical. The entire scene becomes hilarious when the Ameri-
can, for comfort, chooses to ride on an old rickety bamboo cart
being pulled by the jeepney. The Australian film critic Mari
Kuttna has compared Kidlat's style to that of the young Buster
Keaton and in scenes such as this Kidlat's satirical genius is
most evident.
Before making The Perfumed Nightmare Kidlat had as-
sociated with the German filmmaker Werner Herzog and has
even appeared in Herzog's Kaspar Hauser in a cameo role as a
roving minstrel. His performance was unique because in it
Kidlat plays the Ifugao nose flute, one of the most hauntingly
beautiful of instruments, in what must be the only exposure of
this indigenous Filipino instrument to the Western world. Kidlat
32
has obviously been strongly influenced by Herzog; you see it in
the imagery used in telling his tale, the seriousness of his
political statements and his humor.
Kidlat Tahimik has woven his amazing tale around two
sayings which are spoken and symbolically reenacted through-
out the film. "You are the master of your vehicle; only you can
tell it where to go" is played out by Kidlat, jeepney driver par
excellence, and his Sarao jeepney: a Filipino Don Quixote with
the jeepney for his trusted steed. But in this tale, the windmills,
those illusory foes of fear and misunderstanding most of us
spend our lives battling against, are the images of a Filipino's
colonial-life mentality. Kidlat takes us along on his quest to be
the master of his own vehicle .
The second saying, "When the typhoon blows off its
cocoon, the butterfly embraces the sun," comes from a Filipino
folk tale, and becomes a fulfilled prophecy for Kidlat. Born Eric
de Guia in 1942, he continued to sleep in his cocoon of Ameri-
canized dreams for "33 typhoon seasons." By making this film,
the sleeping typhoon learned to blow again . Kidlat says , "See-
ing myself on the editing table screen , forwards, backwards, a
thousand times, a hundred thousand times, I began to under-
stand the nature of my perfumed nightmare." Thus, Eric de
Guia found himself reborn as Kidlat Tahimik. He has seen the
reality of his dreams , his colonial-formed mind's-eye image of
the world . But Kidlat was not destroyed by what he saw. By the
typhoon forces of the tale he has told he has been liberated and
now can embrace the sun, his Filipino spirit.
To put it quite simply , Kidlat Tahimik has made one hell of
a film. Unfortunately, because of the uniqueness of the product,
most distributors are unwilling to "take a chance" with it and it
is unlikely to be viewed in most U.S. cities. Since it was the
surprise hit at the Berlin and L.A. film festivals and has been
favorably screened several times at the Pacific Film Archives in
Berkeley*, as well as highly praised by director Francis Ford
Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now), the film will be
distributed by Coppola's production/distribution company
Zoetrope. It is possible to obtain a copy of The Perfumed
Nightmare by contacting Tom Luddy at Zoetrope Studios, 916
Kearny St., San Francisco, 94133 .
Kidlat has mentioned that The Perfumed Nightmare might
be his first and last film. He is still in the process of deciding
whether or not filmmaking in itself is a perfumed nightmare . But
if he decides to make another film, ideas will not be lacking, for
Kidlat is fascinated by the Filipino native genius . He loves to
mention during a conversation and often as a parting salutation,
"Who invented the yo-yo? Who invented the moon buggy?"
For those readers not up on such matters, both were invented by
Filipinos. Currently, Kidlat is following up the true story of a
Filipino expatriate living in Poland, a genius at designing and
building airplanes and other wonderful things out of bamboo .
Sound improbable? No more so than a film about a jeepney
driver who dreams that someday he will truly be the master of
his own vehicle . Kidlat Tahimik's dreams, the dreams of dis-
covering a true Filipino spirit, are worth thinking about. "*
* Since Berlin the film has been shown at the following festivals: La Rochelle,
Locarno, Edinburgh, San Sebastian, Toronto, Rotterdam, Johannesburg . Prix
de l'Age d'Or of Brussels, Thames (London), Belgrade, San Remo Festival de
Film d'Autour, Carthage, L.A . International, Havana International Festival for
Young People's Cinema and Hong Kong International.