Word: idy
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Idi Amin Dada, It's difficult to imagine a film which could make Idi Amin look good, but this one does, if only by contrast to the director's superficial and racist approach. Focussing almost entirely on Amin talking, the film portrays him as a fat African who speaks pidgin English, looks awfully funny in Western dress, and has delusions of grandeur. What needs to be remembered while watching this inane spectacle is that the man is a mass murderer whose caprises are only slightly more barbaric than his policies, and that many atrocities were undoubtedly going on while Barbet...
...POINT OF documentary cinema at its best is to convey things as they really are, events as they really occurred, in all their beauty, in all their terror, in all their pathos. In this sense, Idi Amin Dada is documentary at its worst, a combination of cheap shots, superficial political commentary, and cultural racism, which results in a meaningless comic portrait of a genocidal dictator. A Swiss director, Barbet Schroeder, took a crew to Uganda in 1974, after having received express permission to do a film portrait of the Ugandan President, who had assumed power in a coup d'etat...
Beyond the occasional slip into the D.W. Griffith syndrome, and far more serious, is the pervasive cultural racism in Idi Amin Dada. Among the moments that are apparently meant to be particularly hilarious are shots of Amin in native dress, participating in what seem to be Ugandan dances and ceremonies. These scenes have no purpose in the film whatsoever, unless Schroeder assumes that his audience will find practices and rites belonging to an alien culture inherently amusing. One is forced to wonder how a Ugandan audience would receive a film showing President Ford donning a football helmet and marching with...
...much admired phenomenon, by all too many in the western world. Schroeder barely scratches the surface of what Amin really is and what Amin's rule in Uganda is all about. Sacrificing serious analysis for attempts at farce, and cheap attempts at that, completely undermines the potential of Idi Amin Dada. Schroeder should not have settled for the easy...
Some notables sent their regrets. Cuba's Fidel Castro said he was busy, and so did North Korea's Kim II Sung and Uganda's Idi Amin ("Big Daddy") Dada. Among those who did gather in Colombo: Viet Nam's ascetic Premier Pham Van Dong, Libya's mercurial Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, India's stately Indira Gandhi, Cyprus' black-bearded Archbishop Makarios...