Perfumed Nightmare by Kidlat Tahimik

Our next film discussion and screening will feature the following film on Wednesday, March 1, 2006 at 7:00pm :


Filipino filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik both directs and stars in Perfumed Nightmare. As the film opens, we see him in three stages of life (symbolized by toy and then real "jeepneys," the elaborately recrafted and decorated vehicles that have their origins in the Jeeps left by the Allies in World War II) crossing the bridge - "the bridge of life" - to his village. Narrating in voiceover, Tahimik explains the patterns of daily life in the village. He has a fascination with the Voice of America broadcasts, and particularly with the NASA space program. He longs to be part of the developed world, and forms a Werner von Braun fan club. When an American arrives for an aborted international conference, he gets his chance. The American asks him to come to Paris, to run his chewing-gum-ball machine concession on the streets. In Paris, and on a trip to Germany, he makes friends and discovers that progress in the developed world sacrifices values important to his cultural heritage.

The film has a delightfully spontaneous home-movie quality - quite literally so, since it was lensed in Super 8mm on a budget of less than $10,000 (basically the cost of the film stock). Truly a one-of-a-kind experience, Perfumed Nightmare was the winner of the Berlin Film Festival International Critics Award in 1983 (six years after its completion, and wholly six years before its general distribution).