Film Forum

(1977, Kidlat Tahimik) Jitney driver/head of the Werner von Braun fan club Tahimik dreams of Cape Canaveral from his village outside Manila, until a brusque American whisks him away to Paris to man his gumball machines. Directorial debut of Werner Herzog protegé Tahimik. In Tagalog, with English subtitles. 16mm. Approx. 93 min.

Reviews

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

“Tahimik is a disciple of Werner Herzog, and it shows in his stylized landscape shots and his general attitude of sentimental recidivism. But he has a much better eye for visual metaphor than his mentor, and his film is full of surprising, strong images, both poetic and satirical. Made for $10,000, the film is a model of resourcefulness, using film scraps, documentary footage, and postdubbed sound in an original, appealing mix.”
– Dave Kehr

“Highly original… a kind of comic Third World psychodrama. The filmmaker plays himself as a rustic naïf, the ideal subject of neocolonialism… As a blueprint for an 'undeveloped' cinema, I haven’t seen anything comparable since Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl or the early films of the Brazilian Cinema Novo. Tahimik is a man of undeniable wit and he details a certain consciousness so engagingly than, uneven as it is, Perfumed Nightmare seems likely to become some sort of classic.”
– J. Hoberman