General Idi Amin Dada - A Self Portrait (1974)
Music By: Idi Amin Dada - (CBE) - Conqueror of the British Empire
Director: Barbet Schroeder
Synopsis: Amin virtually directs in this fascinating and revealoing documentary
Reviewed by: Omar Khan

This documentary on Idi Amin is an exceptional film on several counts. Firstly that it was made at all is a considerable achievement as General Amin was not known for his tolerance and had he thought even for a moment that the film was in anyway designed to expose him for being the murdering bully that he clearly was, it would never have seen the light of day. The filmmakers were very shrewd in their handling of Amin and realized that the ogre would only let them shoot the film as long as he himself was calling the shots, and so it was to be.

The film was shot in effect with Amin himself orchestrating the movements of the camera and deciding exactly what aspects of his personality he would like to share with audiences and which aspects he would prefer to keep hidden. In allowing Amin to shape his own self-portrait, the film makers have brilliantly devised a method by which the pompous, boastful moron would need little goading in exposing himself as the buffoon he was. It comes as no surprise to hear that audiences reacted with roars of laughter rather than reflect on the fact that behind the bumbling and rather charming buffoon lurked a man who had send thousands to their death.

The man was/is a deranged, overgrown bully who somehow part barged, part joked and part charmed his way incredulously to the highest offices of the land, in control of the destiny of millions. A man who may have lacked polish, a classy education and worldly savvy but who made up for those deficiencies with his ruthless survival instinct. It doesn’t take long for the viewer to start catching on to the fact that when it comes to expressing himself Amin is in a league of his own. When discussing politics, or military manoeuvres (a favourite subject) he goes round and around in ridiculously inane tangents. The sequence when he holds court over his ministers must be seen to be believed. “The women must be told to pull their socks up,” exclaims Amin to a bunch of petrified fools who are busily scratching away in their notepads for fear of attracting the wrath of their great leader. The bit when Amin enacts his capturing of the Golan Heights is another quite brilliant sequence totally illustrating the complete insanity of the man and his abject detachment from reality. There are times when one can sense the camera crew egging Amin on sensing that he is babbling absolute gibberish of the most priceless kind.

One thing about the film that is evident is that Amin just adores the fact that the camera is on him. Here is a man who is clearly in love with himself and expects everyone else to be the same. He is without doubt a very charming man with an amazing sense of humour – in fact he is canny enough to realize that this disarming charm and humour is his greatest asset and he often seems to diffuse situations when he is asked prickly questions or is on the spot by responding with some humour. This humour seems to disarm his opponents completely and he somehow barges his way through situations without the slightest hint of opposition. Amin was in charge of the way this film was to turn out not realizing that in blowing his own trumpet so pompously and loudly he would totally expose himself as he really was – a very funny, charming fat man who was also a deranged, mentally deficient, self worshipping mass murderer of the worst kind. The film also suggests that the cult classic take on Idi Amin by Sharad Patel entitled The Rise and Fall of Amin is hardly the slanderous exploitationer that one took for granted. This film shows that Joseph Olitta has done even a finer job than one had imagined because his rendition of Amin in Patel’s film is spot on. Also the tendency to take most of the events depicted in Patel’s film as being vindictive is unjust as it turns out that his film was chillingly accurate as almost every single event depicted in that film has been backed up as fact in written form and now this documentary, which clearly shows that Amin was perhaps even more dangerously out of touch with reality than history suggests.

It’s very easy to sit back and howl at the insane genius of Idi Amin and his political philosophising…one could laugh for hours on end, but then, spare a thought for those families who lost their loved ones due to the demented whims of this bloodthirsty megalomaniac. Idi Amin remains alive and well, living as a guest of the Saudi government (like another ex leader rather closer to home) where he was exiled after his catastrophic regime was overthrown in the mid 70’s. This is an excellent documentary film that captures the man in his true colours, exactly as he would like to have been seen. A favourite line from the film is when Amin describes how Golda Meir of Israel would provide “very good entertainments” for him when he visited Israel. There are innumerable moments that ought to have the viewer splits; the bits when he is chatting to the animals, the bit when he explains how he is at one with the people and how much they love him, the bit when he explains his own brand of democracy.

ble to shift alliances without actually ever really changing any policies except for a few decorative slogans here and there. When he was with the American’s it was all Liberty and Freedom, then when he split with them and the Israeli’s he adopted a sort of Nasser-like revolutionary nationalist pan Afro-Arab rhetoric, which was then followed by his shift to the left when words such as Imperialism started to flow with great ease. Amin’s logic is staggering and only a genius on his own wavelength could even hope to follow the twisted train of thought and hallucinatory military strategies.

And finally how can one forget those “voices that come to me from God”! Idi Amin should have remained a boxer, how he ever came to become president of a nation will always boggle the mind, but then Ronald Reagan was elected president of the US for two terms and the Soviets had Brezhnev who was virtually brain dead when he gave the command for the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in ’79 – so clearly, anything goes! Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the DVD is that Amin tried to enforce some cuts to the film upon discovering a few sequences that didn’t turn out to his liking. The general decided to use the French community in Uganda as hostage and gathered them all forcibly into one Kampala Hotel where they were refused permission to leave. He then gave the French families the number of the director Schroeder and told them that if he (Schroeder) wanted the safety of his fellow citizens he would make the three cuts Amin was demanding!