General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait
Directed by Barbet Schroeder
Written by Barbet Schroeder
1974/France/Switzerland
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel
Idi Amin: [a Telegram to Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania] I want to assure you that I love you very much, and if you had been a woman I would have considered marrying you although your head is full of grey hairs, but as you are a man that possibility does not arise.
You can’t help being entertained by the antics of Idi Amin, even knowing the depth of his evil.
Barbet Schroeder agreed that Amin, the brutal dictator oppressing and murdering his fellow Ugandans, could arrange the scenes shot for this documentary so long as Amin himself appeared in the scene. Amin acts like a buffoon throughout. My favorite part is where he demonstrates his strategy for taking the Golan Heights back from Israel using a tank, some of the most bedraggled soldiers ever seen, and a helicopter. He plays the accordian and demonstrates traditional dance moves. He also takes the crew out to visit his extensive collection of crocodiles. We learn from the narration that the bodies of his opponents wound up in their stomachs. The movie closes with him organizing a charity drive for the U.K. where he has heard the people are hungry. 
This movie is absolutely fascinating. You really cannot take your eyes from the flamboyant, charismatic dictator and his bizarre fantasy world. Many of his statements are so outlandish even he laughs. But you can also see the evil peeking through at points. It’s an unsettling experience. It is estimated that Amin’s policies of political oppression and ethnic persecution killed between 100,000 and 500,000 Ugandans.
