Word: schroeder
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...other heads of state such as Tanzania's Julius Nyerere. Amin saw the film, which consists almost entirely of interviews with him and scenes of him in action, directing war games and making speeches, before it was released, and he evidently found it sufficiently flattering to allow it and Schroeder out of Uganda. Apparently we the public are supposed to perceive this fact as bitterly ironic, as though it should be extraordinarily surprising that the man who announced his intention to build a national monument to Hitler should have so poor a sense of public relations...
...attempts to deliver to the assembled physicians of Kampala, he is almost completely incoherent. Although he is undoubtedly something less than a brilliant political and social theorist in Swahili, his flawed English tends to make him appear a borderline idiot, which he certainly is not. It is unfortunate that Schroeder chose to make a political film in and about a country whose language he does not speak. But it is even more unfortunate that, rather than avail himself of the services of an interpreter, he deliberately utilized the language barrier, apparently to place particular emphasis on Amin's frighteningly shallow...
...women, not to be late to their meetings or out of their offices when he calls, and not to dilly-dally about executing spies, he has gotten so lost that he forgets the last four points. And as he rambles from non-sequitur to non-sequitur, appearing completely ludicrous, Schroeder's camera pans the room--the ministers are, to a man, taking diligent notes or listening in rapt attention. Now certainly this scene, with its Emperor's New Clothes quality to it, strikes an amusing chord. But when one considers that it is likely that not a single person...
...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 the band during half-time of the Michigan-Ohio State game...
...Schroeder makes an attempt to provide a contextual narrative discussing the major events of Amin's reign. Surely it would be too much to expect a sophisticated political analysis of the Amin regime as background narration to an hour and a half film, but Schroeder's effort is nonetheless startlingly superficial. Amin's "economic war"--the wholesale destruction of the Asian community in Uganda--is accorded a scant few sentences and dismissed as a failure. That is however, considerably better than the discussion of Amin's shift from a relatively close relationship with Israel to a virtual alliance with Lybia...