An essential work of post-colonial cinema, Kidlat Tahimik's The Perfumed Nightmare formally exists in a space between methodical and anarchic construction, employing an innocence-laden lens which evinces the perversity of neo-colonialism through cultural imperialism which has been the West's most powerful, and arguably toxic commodity for some time. The Perfumed Nightmare is challenging and confrontational intellectually while maintaining a sincerity to its observations which are sculpted out of equal parts idealism and naivety towards the promises of Western Civilization. The destabilizing effects on the social fabric which economic/industrial progress can create is purveyed through a filmmaker who idolizes Western principles and promises yet he intrinsically recognizes the need for communal attachment in larger society - a confrontation of ideas which plays out subliminally throughout much of this film's ingenious formal construction. Featuring film grammar which elucidates the commonality of labor in production that traverses disparate cultures while simultaneously exposing the often insidious nature lofty notions of progress tied to untenable growth and progressive consumption can have on the social, The Perfumed Nightmare exhibits how exploitation is created through ideological conscription.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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