General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Barbet Schroeder

Overview

Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada was but a distant irritation to everyone but his own countrymen and the British Empire until his perfidy became headline material in the early '70s. The first director to provide an in-depth study of this gregarious madman was director Barbet Schroeder, with his General Idi Amin Dada. In this documentary, Schroeder and his crew travel to Uganda to spend several days with the despot, one-on-one. The uncomfortable truths revealed in the film are all the most amazing when one realizes that Schroeder could not release his documentary without Amin's approval.

Product Details

Release Date:	12/12/2017
UPC:	0715515207416
Original Release:	1974
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Language:	English
Time:	1:30:00
Sales rank:	16,845

Special Features

New, restored 2k digital transfer, supervised by Director Barbet Schroeder, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack; Interviews from 2001 and 2017 with Schroeder; New interview with journalist and author Andrew Rice about Idi Amin's regime; Plus: An essay by critic J. Hoberman

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Technical Credits

Barbet Schroeder

Barbet Schroeder

Director,Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

The commanding presence of the natural actor General Idi Amin Dada dominates every frame of this of-its-time documentary. He is large and forceful, but surprisingly well-spoken, and it's obvious he thinks about things quite a bit. Some of his ideas are dangerous (he smiles approvingly when informing director/interviewer Barbet Schroeder that he knows the Palestinians are training "suicide teams" to terrorize Israel) and simply blue-sky nutty (as when he expresses a desire to teach Swahili to all of the African-Americans in the U.S. so as to foment a secret revolution). It's also very funny to notice that during a swim competition, the burly dictator-for-life miraculously wins against a half-dozen competitors who are much younger and much more svelte. Who wants to beat a guy who could, in the blink of an eye, order your execution for offending him? Not that Amin Dada does anything near that in this "self-portrait" -- there are scenes of military executions without Amin Dada present -- but it's interesting to see that although he has four wives and 18 children, no one in the entire film comes close to him in a friendly manner, chats casually with him, or regards him without obvious fear. The narrative structure barely holds up -- there are long periods of uninteresting material and no inherent drama -- but for those who want to see a despot in action, this offers one-of-a-kind candid insights. Amin Dada's cannibalism, which became a hot topic for a while in the late '70s, isn't addressed.

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