General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait (DVD)

In 1974, Barbet Schroeder went to Uganda to make a film about Idi Amin, the countrys ruthless, charismatic dictator. Three years into a murderous regime that would be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ugandans, Amin prepared a triumphal greeting for the filmmakers, staging rallies, military maneuvers, and cheery displays of national pride, and envisioning the film as an official portrait to adorn his cult of personality. Schroeder, however, had other ideas, emerging with a disquieting, caustically funny brief against Amin, in which the dictators own endless stream of testimonyby turns charming, menacing, and nonsensicalserves as the most damning evidence. A revelatory tug-of-war between subject and filmmaker, "General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait" is a landmark inthe art of documentary and an appalling study of egotism in power.