"Gibraltar. Scene During the Plague" by Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1836)

At first, I only buried one,
    And she was borne along
By kindred mourners to her grave,
    With sacred rite and song.
At first they sent for me to pray
    Beside the bed of death:
They blessed their household, and they breathed
    Prayer in their latest breath.
But then men died more rapidly—
    They had not time to pray;
And from the pillow love had smoothed
    Fear fled in haste away.
And then there came the fastened door—
    Then came the guarded street—
Friends in the distance watched for friends;
    Watched,—that they might not meet.
And Terror by the hearth stood cold,
    And rent all natural ties,
And men, upon the bed of death,
    Met only stranger eyes:
The nurse—and guard, stern, harsh, and wan
    Remained, unpitying, by;
They had known so much wretchedness,
    They did not fear to die.
Heavily rung the old church bells,
    But no one came to prayer:
The weeds were growing in the street,
    Silence and Fate were there.
O’er the first grave by which I stood,
    Tears fell, and flowers were thrown,
The last grave held six hundred lives,*
    And there I stood alone.

"Madre" by Rodrigo Sorogoyen (2019)

An innocent phone call quickly escalates into a nightmare as a Elena (Marta Nieto) realises that her little son (on vacation somewhere with a father) is left alone and scared on a beach, with nobody in sight. There is nothing she can do from a distance, as nobody knows where the boy actually is - is it Spain or France? All he can say is that he is alone on the beach, the night is falling and there is a man coming over and looking at him. "Run Ivan, run as fast as you can and hide!" is the last thing she can say before phone goes off.

The story continues ten years later - Elena now lives in France and works in a beach restaurant around exactly same area where her little boy disappeared years ago. There is a work and a new lover, caring Joseba (Alex Brendemühl) but we can sense that Elena is deeply wounded and unhappy, her heart is broken and nothing makes her genuinely happy. People are eating, laughing, dancing around her and she is always a bit distant, as she can never truly relax with a secret scar she is hiding. Until one day she spots a group of teenagers on the beach and something about golden locks of Jean (Jules Porier) strongly reminds her of her long vanished son - so much, that she follows him home and peeks trough the bushes at his lunch with a family. From here, movie turns into obsession not unlike Gustav von Aschenbach and Tadzio in "Death in Venice" - middle aged woman stalking a teenage boy who responds with his youthful innocence, curiosity and even erotic interest. Because Elena keeps everything packed up tightly inside and never reveals how deeply she still suffer the loss of her boy, after all these years, the whole story appears kind of sordid - everybody (including Jean himself) thinks this is a crazy lady lusting after a teenage boy and eventually things just fall apart because his family won't allow her close by anymore. The obsession turns almost into madness, shared between Elena and Jean.

I left the cinema very upset - I needed a drink and a good ranting over glass of wine why was this so insufferable, this & that. Everything would have been so much easier had Elena only talk to someone - the whole drama happens because she is keeping everything inside and never even confides what tortures her. People get the wrong conclusion because they don't understand her perspective. Boy and his teenage friends think this is a crazy lady lusting after him. Colleagues at work, people around them, Jean's family - they all judge her and have their own conclusions simply because she never tells anybody "listen, he reminds me so much of my own son he went missing many years ago". Had she only said that out loud, people would react completely differently and might even understand what she is going trough. But she keeps silent and appears as deranged woman running after a teenage boy, who naturally fights with his parents because he is so young that for him this is probably first love and an earthquake. I even suggested that the very first scene could have been placed last, to explain why she behaved the way she did. My friend didn't agree, he thought this was perfect and claimed he was never bored even though the movie crawled and went on forever. There was something intentionally slow about the pacing that made me feel as the movie was going on for hours and hours (its actually two hours long) and frankly, it could have been edited since lots of scenes were not really so important. I was angry, I was mad and upset because nothing was the way I wanted  - later, as I calmed down, I just ad to accept the movie moved me very much and its actually very, very strong drama, even if it had upset me. This was not my vision but directors and he created his own work - later I found out that the whole movie was expansion of that first, chilling scene that was originally a short movie. So from that particular scene - mother on the phone - Rodrigo Sorogoyen has built a whole movie that now follows what happened with Elena afterwards. Now I think its excellent, how interesting that it provoked such strong emotions - I just needed to sleep on it and think of it from a different perspective. I saw it a week ago and still thinking about it. 

"The Kingmaker" by Lauren Greenfield (2019)

This is one of the best documentaries I have seen so far in 2020. and it was definitely thought-provoking and kind of a movie you just want to discuss with your friends afterwards. It was done with a full co-operation of Imelda Marcos who kind of has a strained relationship with the media - her willingness to constantly talk to journalists shows that she still deeply care about her public image (there is a whole army of people taking care of her hair, make up and the dresses) but no matter from which perspective one looks at it, she is not convincing. What "The Kingmaker" does and it does it masterfully, is to present how history can be re-written if we are not careful and the mistakes from the past are bound to happen again and again if people are willing to be manipulated. 

Imelda comes across as a beautiful trophy wife who overstayed her welcome - long ago, she was the pearl of Philippines, a president's wife and an elegant hostess who had her hand kissed by every visiting politician. Gullible and sentimental population admired the couple for decades, until they brazen political manipulations became unbearable - had they quietly resigned in time, president and his pretty wife might have enjoyed comfortable life out of the spotlight, but it took a revolution to topple them from a throne and even than, Imelda returns to Manilla in order to bulldoze way for her son's political ambition. It is very clear that the son is not really in it but he does it for the mother who is basking in attention and there is a strong hint that grandson might follow the path. While the camera follows aggressive political campaign and election, we also witness testimonies of the people who were imprisoned, tortured and raped during years of president Marcos regime - they can't believe how gullible the population became in the meantime and how quickly everything is forgotten, why are Marcoses even allowed to return to the country, not to mention to participate in a election. 

The secret behind president Ferdinand Marcos power is in the finances given to him by US as exchange for persecuting communists in Philippines - we are talking about billions of dollars meant for building the infrastructure. They surely built and built, but this were mostly vanity projects, palaces and investments that had nothing to do with re-building the country. Not unlike French royal family who had to escape in a carriage during the revolution, Marcoses had to escape with a helicopter while angry mob was demolishing their palace bellow - even than, they had enough wealth amassed in various banks around the world. It took some guts for Imelda to actually return to Philippines and the documentary is now following her attempts to bring her family back in the political frontline. The scary thing is - she actually might succeed. The new president (who appears to be a con man) Rodrigo Duterte is more than willing to help them for exchange for the bribe - however, Marcoses are playing with fire here because this is a very dangerous situation where political opponents and competition are openly murdered in the night. As long as this president finds them useful and non-threatening, he will let them parade around. But there is a cold look in his eyes that suggest he could easily eliminate the whole family once he puts his hands on their bank accounts. 

Imelda herself is simpering and whimpering - she loves to repeat how she lost her mother at the age of eight and was hard-working her whole life. In one of the movie's best scenes, she is again telling her same old story but trough Freudian slip, she said "At the age of eight I lost my money, um, mother"  - no doubt after years of repeating the same script she actually genuinely believes her own words and sees herself as a mother of the nation. Wincing in disgust at the scenes of poverty of children patients in a cancer ward, she quickly gives away some cash "for the candy"  but this is as far as her mothering goes. Realising that Picasso and Michelangelo hanging above her might attract some unwanted attention, she quickly replaces them with some inconspicuous photographs. My issue with all of this is not the wealth itself but the criminal ways it was amassed and used for pulling the strings behind the scenes - its a cautionary tale that probably functions around the world, not just in Philippines. Personally I think that Marcoses are in a danger and would have been far safer living in a comfortable anonymity of Bel Air - Imelda's political ambition will probably get them all killed sooner or later.