The Great Dictators

Uncle Saddam (2000, 63 min.)

13 Oca 2010

The Great Dictators is a monthly film night at De Verdieping, the cultural project space of TrouwAmsterdam, focussing on ‘the vanity of evil’. Each night centers around one absolute ruler, both past and present, and shows how tyrants and populist leaders are (re)presented in (documentary) films, this months it’s Sadam Hussein’s turn on Wednesday the 9th of December.

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Saddam Hussein - bron

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Uncle Saddam offers a satirical yet sobering look inside the world of the Iraqi ex-president Saddam Hussein. Definitely not the best documentary ever made (one commentator even called it “the worst American propaganda movie since Tarsan against the nazis“..), but nonetheless an unparalleled attempt to portray the utterly vain and cruel Hussein in the happy years leading up to his downfall.

The French-born filmmaker Joel Soler, who is still under government protection, risked life and limb to shoot and smuggle this strange and captivating footage out of Iraq. He gained exclusive access to Saddam’s entourage and archives while in Iraq, and the resulting portrait is of a man drunk on power and obsessed obsessed with his own legacy. Soler ingratiated himself to Saddam’s inner circle (including his personal filmmaker, his architect, and his interior decorator) by convincing them he intended to document the country’s suffering under U.N. sanctions.

If Saddam weren’t so murderous, the film would be funny for its high-camp elements, such as the picture gallery of Saddam portraits or details of his plans to build an island in the shape of his own thumbprint. “He is like a Roman emperor, a diva,” explains Soler, who gained such intimate access by pretending he was malting a movie on the U.N. embargo. “He’s campy as well as evil.” Just like the film itself.

Join us for the next GREAT DICTATORS film night on January 13, starts 20:30 hrs