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Soon after Schroeder’s documentary was released in theatres throughout Europe and North America, the Ugandan leader discovered that Western audiences were receiving the film with extended fits of laughter (due, presumably, to Amin’s extended, eccentric monologues in the film). As portrayed in Barbet Schroeder’s “self portrait,” however, Amin emerges as a man whose life may well have been lived as a commentary upon all that is bizarre and shameful about Caucasian imperialism, even if Amin himself was not fully aware that he was providing so rich and hyperbolized a commentary through both his actions and his behavior. Typical readings of Amin describe him as a man-child and a fool, completely unaware of how ridiculous he was coming across to the rest of the world, even as he laughed and murdered his way through nearly a decade of brutality as Uganda’s leader in the 1970s.
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It doesn't sit well, does it? Meanwhile, you still have to work your shit-ass day job to pay the Com Ed bill.Idi Amin is the kind of historical figure who makes post-colonial theorists drool at the mouth, his mixture of traditional African heritage and adopted modes of “Western” leadership style being just one sign of a complex identity crises resulting from years of trauma at the hands of his white oppressors. As with Dada itself, you must now contend with the sense of frustration that Amin's brutality was without personal consequence to him. At one point he fantasizes about doing a sequel about Amin's life in exile, presenting the equally ridiculous reality of Amin's comfortable life in Saudi Arabia, driving a minivan and going out for picnics with his kids.Īmin's death means that film will never happen, but you can imagine it clearly enough. It's not the scathing indictment you might expect or desire, but if that's a strike against the film's impact, it's one for the film's absolute uniqueness.Ĭriterion's DVD adds an amusing and informative interview with Schroeder, who recalls the weird experience of filming Amin with much humor. The tone is therefore quite odd, giving Dada an absurdly dark humor imagine Triumph of the Will with several scenes of Hitler playing the banjo.
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The minister shifts uncomfortably in his chair at being singled out, to the point where it's rather humorous until a voice-over reveals that two weeks later, the man was crocodile chum. One scene shows Amin chastising his Minister of Foreign Affairs at a council meeting. Schroeder does interject a few reality checks, though, to keep you from wanting to jump up and give Amin a big snuggle. If you were to approach the movie with no knowledge of Amin's history, what you'd come away with would be a view of the man as a charming, kind of harmless fool, a self-ignorant Falstaff type. Schroeder lets Amin speak for himself, letting the viewer supply the context. Schroeder gained an amazing level of access to Amin, who is clearly jazzed by being the subject of a film, and who is alarmingly candid about himself throughout. The psychopathic murderousness, apparently, was just another necessary quality to leadership. The horrifying reality of Amin's life informs General Idi Amin Dada, but indirectly Barbet Schroeder's documentary simply presents Amin as he was, a buffoonish, boastful egomaniac who simply saw himself as a strong leader. His regime is reported to have been responsible for the deaths of 300,000 people so many, in fact, that at various points there were too many dead bodies in the Nile for the crocodiles to keep up with consumption.
#GENERAL IDI AMIN DADA MOVIE REVIEW FULL#
You'd think that a documentary about Ugandan dictator Idi Amin would be full of darkness and outrage, viciously revealing the man's brutality and terrorism.