Word: vez
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...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...
...raises no tough issues, some of which are summarized in Amnesty International's 2009 report on Venezuela: "Attacks on journalists were widespread. Human-rights defenders continued to suffer harassment. Prison conditions provoked hunger strikes in facilities across the country." Referring to the 2006 election in which Chávez won a third term, Stone tells viewers that "90% of the media was opposed to him," and yet he prevailed. "There is a lesson to be learned," Stone says. Yes: support the man in power, or your newspaper, radio station or TV network may be in jeopardy...
...movie's second half has more appeal to a general audience, perhaps because most of the other Presidents are less famous or notorious than Chávez, perhaps because the first half has conditioned us to a rigorously genial treatment of them. Lula da Silva brags that Brazil paid off the IMF debt and that the country now has a $260 billion surplus. (Irmao, can you spare us a dime?) Morales, the first indigenous President of Bolivia, says he considers himself "less a President than a union leader." The Illinois-educated Correa says smilingly that the U.S. can again have...
...international celebrity as any of his subjects, Stone is ever willing to interrupt an interview for some schmoozing or fun. He kicks a football around with Chávez, shares coca leaves with Morales, quizzes Kirchner on how many pairs of shoes she owns. (A little annoyed at the implicit comparison to Imelda Marcos, Kirchner replies, "If I were a man, would you ask me how many pairs of pants I own?") Accompanying Chávez to the mud hut where he was born, Stone directs the President in a scene: ride around the yard on the bicycle...
...predatory and that priests, in the U.S. and Paraguay (where the President is a former Catholic bishop), are all liberation theologians. And in both films, Barack Obama's election is heralded as triggering an era of enlightenment. "I hope he will be a new Roosevelt," Chávez says at the end of the film, "and I hope he starts a new New Deal...