Perfumed Nightmare (Kidlat Tahimik, 1977, 16mm) | Jameson's Cinematic Century

Perfumed Nightmare
(Kidlat Tahimik, 1977, 91 min, Philippines, in English, Tagalog, French, German with English subtitles, 16mm)

Winner of the Berlin Film Festival International Critics Award

Produced and directed by Kidlat Tahimik, this brilliant semi-autobiographical fable tells the story of a young Filipino born in 1942 (during the Occupation), his awakening to, and reaction against, American cultural colonialism. In his small village, Kidlat dreams of Cape Canaveral and listens to the Voice of America; he’s even the president of his village’s Werner Von Braun fan club. 
[16mm print courtesy of Duke University Libraries, with thanks to the distributor of the film, Les Blank Films.]

Perfumed Nightmare “reminds one that invention, insolence, enchantment, even innocence, are still available to film.” – Susan Sontag

“A bizarre, hallucinatory movie full of dazzling images and outlandish ideas. It’s both real and surreal, poetic and political, naive and wise, primitive and supremely accomplished . . . a dazzling testament to the liberty of the imagination.” – Gene Youngblood

“One of the most original and poetic works of cinema made anywhere in the seventies.” – Werner Herzog 

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