Eric de Guia
Kidlat Tahimik, whose real name is Eric de Guia (Kidlat Tahimik means "quiet lightning" in Tagalog and is also the name of his first son, born before completing this film), grew up "eating French fries and burgers" in Baguio, The Philippines. (Baguio is a summer resort, influenced by American culture from longstanding U.S. bases.) A restless and ambitious person with an idiosyncratic and somtimes mystical vision, he began this, his first film, more or less by accident. He had come to Europe to sell Filipino-made trinkets, but a typhoon delayed the shipment. (Some of this history was later reworked in a later film, Turumba.) Stranded, he made some contacts with filmmakers, including Werner Herzog. On $10,000, using outdated film stock, found and stock footage, and donated in-kind resources through Herzog's network, he spent years simultaneously making this film and learning how to make film. The film was released in the U.S. through Francis Coppola's now-defunct studio Zoetrope (again, through Herzog's connections, with Coppola's producer Tom Luddy).
Tahimik returned to the Philippines, but lives an international life. His later films are in some ways simpler than this one, which depend for its effects on elaborate pastiche. He has been working on a film called Memories of Overdevelopment (a takeoff on Tomas Gutierrez Alea's Memories of Underdevelopment) since 1983. It is to be the story of the first man to voyage around the world--not Magellan, but one of his slaves, bought in the Philippines.
(Cross-Cultural Film Guide)
Kidlat Tahimik is a Filipino filmmaker and shaman who applies his quiet strength and sharp wit to lead the viewer through the cultural maze of his homeland. Born in 1942 during the US occupation, Tahimik spent "the next 33 typhoon seasons in a cocoon of American dreams." His first feature film, Mababangong Bangungot (Perfumed Nightmare), and his second film, Turumba, investigate the convoluted historical and political events surrounding the colonization of his homeland. Through concentrating on the individuals and communities that have been shaped and irrevocably affected by the technological age, he has created a humorous and incisive fable which explores his awakening to, and reaction against, American cultural domination.
FILMOGRAPHY
Perfumed Nightmare
