Much of the film consists of interviews with Idi Amin, in which he discusses his assumed popularity, his politics, and his visions for the future. Even though it was made with his full cooperation and the final product had his seal of approval-this did, however, require Schroeder to remove roughly two and a half minutes of footage from three different parts of the film, all of which was immediately restored once he was deposed in 1979-the 'self-portrait' turns out to be an awkward doodle, a undeniably charming and funny, yet ruthless despot's pathetic attempt to pass himself off as a benign populist following the will of the people.

Rather, it depicts him as how he wanted to be seen, and the film is most fascinating when it shows us the cracks in his performance, where he is unable to contain his anger and paranoia.Ī true narcissist, Idi Amin was so taken with himself that he was incapable of realizing how bad the film ultimately makes him look. The film's subtitle, A Self-Portrait, is all too appropriate because it never depicts Amin as he truly was. In the film, he is almost always depicted as the former because he knew he was on-camera. A former heavy-weight boxer with military training in the British army, Amin was a sizable presence, an enormous, garrulous man who could be affable one moment and seething the next. Idi Amin came into power in 1971, less than a decade after Uganda had become independent from the British, when he staged a military coup and ousted then-Prime Minister Milton Obote, under whom Amin had served as chief of the military. Meanwhile, Uganda, a country that had been historically prosperous, was sliding into severe economic decline and rapid inflation, and some 300,000 citizens were being killed by the military. Mistaken that Schroeder and his small crew were there to make a celebratory portrait of him, Idi Amin gave them free access to his daily routines, which seem to consist of little more than appearing at a series of staged events. In Barbet Schroeder's 1974 documentary General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait ( Gnral Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait), the titular dictator, who ruled the small African nation of Uganda from 1971 to 1979, is the 800-pound gorilla, playing any and every position he wants. If you're on a football team with an 800-pound gorilla, what position do you let him play? A.

The old joke goes something like this: 'Q. Stars: General Idi Amin Dada, Fidel Castro, Golda Meir

General idi amin dada movie review