General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait

General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait [Général Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait] (Criterion #153).
1974 Figaro Films & Janus Films.
Featuring: Idi Amin
Music: Idi Amin
Director: Barbet Schroeder
Available from Amazon.

Before he directed mainstream fare such as Single White Female and Reversal of Fortune, director Barbet Schroeder this documentary film about Idi Amin, the buffoonish military dictator who reigned over Uganda for eight years (1971-1979), and essentially drove that nation completely into the ground. Surprisingly, Amin willingly cooperated with Schroeder during production, despite the fact that he comes across as completely unintelligent, as if the finished film would have improved his image worldwide.

The truly frightening thing is, Idi Amin actually comes across as somewhat likeable. This is the man who had between 300,000 and 500,000 of his fellow countrymen put to death for just about any reason Amin could think of. This is also the man who ordered 80,000 Asians out of Uganda during a so-called "economic war" in 1972, then appropriated their businesses for his own followers, many of who had no business running them at all. All the while, Amin is heartily laughing about his justifications for his anti-Semitism, and anything else he's done wrong.

Over the course of the film, Amin brags about how much good he's done for Uganda after he seized power in 1971, demonstrates military training of a planned invasion of Israel where Amin's men train on a playground of all things, and talks about how any hijacked Israeli aircraft would be welcomed in Uganda, two years before Operation Entebbe happened. Amin is also featured in a cabinet meeting where he dresses down his Minister of Foreign Affairs (who would be found dead in the Nile River exactly two weeks later), and spouts off ground rules where if anyone misses three meetings, they are OUT of there!

One telling scene finds Amin meeting with a group of Ugandan doctors, who are wanting to discuss medical issues, and Amin is visably nervous and uncomfortable talking to them, especially when he starts babbling about the dangers of alcohol, almost as if, for one moment, Amin is actually recognizing his lack of intelligence while in a roomful of educated medical professionals who could very well run Uganda much better than he ever could.

Highly recommended documentary, presenting a real life dictator who was so ridiculously stupid that if he were any worse, other people would have had to invent him.