Kidlat Tahimik’s “Third World Projector”: Revolution, subjetivity and voice in Why is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow? (1994)

Abstract

In this article, I discuss the importance of Why is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow? (1994), made by Philippine director Kidlat Tahimik (n. 1942), in the context of documentary representations on film of revolutionary processes and post-colonial resistance in the Philippines. My work focuses on the two narrative lines that run through the dramatic structure of the film: one reporting to the last years of Ferdinand Marcos’s dictatorship (1980-1986) and the so-called People Power Revolution (1983-1986), and another referring to an intimate portrayal of the director’s family during this period, which emphasizes Tahimik’s and his son’s subjectivity. Drawing on Bill Nichols’s concept of “performative documentary” (2001), I analyze how the introduction of a personal dimension into the collective memory lends itself to a deeper emotional connection to the filmic universe on the part of the viewer. Finally, I explore the convergence – and eventual discord – of Tahimik with the assumptions of Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino’s Third Cinema (1969), namely regarding the adoption of a certain ethics of production and a certain thematic approach, embodied in this film by what the author designates a “Third World projector”.