After watching that documentary, Idi Amin seemed like quite a character. There was nothing sinister about him at all. He was like a jolly fat man with a sense of humor and would give away his legengary deep chuckle whenever asked with an awkward question (heh, heh, heh, heh!)... like that. But if you notice in a few scenes (such as his appearance at a university near the film's close) he has this blank, cold stare from his eyes. If one looks into them, they might see nothing there in back of them. No compassion, pity, sentiment, or humanity.
In private, Amin had a real Jeckly/Hyde personality. One minute he could be charming, charasmatic, eccentric and flamboyant like you see him in the film. But in next if would say the wrong thing to him or provoke him in the slightest he would turn into this angry, ranting and raving madman you would avoid at all costs.
If you also notice that Amin wears an expensive at-least-$1,000 gold Rolex wristwatch on his left wrist... something that the average Ugandan would not be able to aford to pay for at all during his life, which shows off more of Amin's self-indulgence.
Overall, a compelling, but shallow, story in the week of the life of a self-serving dictator from Uganda who wanted the world to see him in a positive light to hide the real personality that he really was.
Not to get off topic here, but I wish to find another documentary of another well-known and eccentric African dictator that of Jean-Bédel Bokassa, the self-proclaimed 'Emperor' of the Central African Republic, during the same years of Idi Amin's rule. Bokassa was less bloodthirsty and murderous then Amin, but more flamboyant and self-indulgent. While English-speaking Amin saw himself as the 'Hitler of Africa', the French-speaking Bokassa saw himself as the 'Napolean of Africa' and modeled his 1977 coronnation cerimony after the coronation of Napolean himself. There are exerpts of both Amin's documentary and Bokassa's documentary on YouTube, the only thing is that the Bokassa documentary (filmed in 1977-78) and his interviews is in French and my knowledge of the French language is not very good at all.
reply
share