Word: filming
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...rumor spread around the Lido like a Venezuelan oil fire: that the Venice Film Festival had paid for Oliver Stone's trip to show his new documentary South of the Border but wouldn't cover the expenses of the film's chief subject, Hugo Chávez. To some on the European (and American) Left, the President of Venezuela is a hero for his redistribution of wealth and truculent stance toward the U.S. under George W. Bush, whom he famously called the Devil. To others, his socialist agenda is tainted by human-rights violations and suppression of the opposition press...
...photographed in part by docu-doyen Albert Maysles - is amateur night as cinema, as lopsided and cheerleadery as its worldview. U.S. foreign policy, Stone asserts, divides South American nations into "friends, whose leaders do what we tell them to do, and enemies, whose leaders occasionally disagree with us." His film is no more nuanced. He sees the geopolitical glass as all empty (the U.S. and its world-banking arm, the International Monetary Fund) or all full (Chávez and his comrade Presidentes in South America). But there's an undeniable fascination in the project, even some inspirational value...
Stone extends his rigorous dichotomy to the film's structure. The first half focuses on Chávez, the second on other South American heads of state who tilt to the port side: Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Paraguay's Fernando Lugo, Ecuador's Rafael Correa, Argentina's Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Bolivia's Evo Morales and the grand old man of social revolution, Raúl Castro. (Stone profiled Raúl's brother in a similarly indulgent 2003 poli-doc, Commandante.) The only missing socialist leader is Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua...
...film's first section briefly synopsizes Chávez's life from his mud-hut birth in Sabaneta to his rise through the Venezuelan military, to his abortive coup attempt in 1992 and his election seven years later to lead the world's third-largest oil provider - increasing the standard of living for many of his country's poor while denying many rights to those, especially in the media, who would oppose him. In the movie's rose-colored lens, the President comes across as an outsize personality, equal parts machismo and charisma. He sounds more sensible than menacing when...
...column in Mu,. Never shy about her opinions, she propagates them with gusto on television, discussing everything from religion to cooking, with the authority of a lifestyle guru or "life composer," as she describes herself. One day, she has said, she would like to direct an Oscar-award winning film starring Tom Cruise, whom she claims to have known in a previous life, when the actor was Japanese...