CUBA NEWS
March 29, 2004

Semper Fidel

Oliver Stone captures Fidel the man but blows his opportunity to expose Castro the dictator

By Stephen Cole. The Globe and Mail. Canada, Saturday, March 27, 2004 - Page 4.

There is a sublime moment early on in Oliver Stone's documentary on Fidel Castro -- Comandante -- where the young rebel leader proclaims: "When I have fulfilled our promise of a new government, I will cut my beard!"

Stone then fast-forwards 45 years to reveal the world's longest serving dictator stooped over, peering at his reflection. "Let me take a closer look at myself," he whispers, examining his still unharvested facial hair.

The piercing juxtaposition is vintage Stone, a filmmaker long obsessed by self-betrayal. (His best feature films are Platoon and Nixon -- stories of soldiers who lost their souls in battle.)

Stone's talent for filmmaking is much in evidence in Comandante, which airs Sunday as part of CBC Newsworld's Passionate Eye series. Filmed over the course of three days in 2002, the filmmaker gets under the Cuban dictator's skin with rat-tat-tat scattergun questions.

What does Castro think of Viagra? Who are his favourite actresses and Russian premiers? Has he ever seen a psychiatrist? What did he think of the film Titanic? How about the Bay of Pigs? And what's the story with the woman over there who has been his translator for 30 years -- does he love her?

At one point, Stone and Castro are in a car when the filmmaker discovers a handgun. "Hey, Fidel, still know how to use this?" Stone wonders aloud. Growing weary of his snooping guest, the old revolutionary offers a seemingly wistful, "Perhaps, I still remember."

There is a method to Stone's delirium. The filmmaker is after an unguarded portrait of his subject. Forget about Castro, he wants to understand Fidel, so he presumes a barging familiarity, hoping to upset an icon into becoming a man.

All fine and good, but while Stone is often a good filmmaker, he clearly isn't much of a journalist. The montage of footage showing Castro's 1959 overthrow of President Batista is masterfully integrated into contemporary, on-the-run interview sequences.

And frequently Stone has Castro off guard. At one point, the dictator, his eyes shining with some private hurt, allows he sometimes feels shame. Elsewhere, he becomes defensive about Cuba's progress and so boasts that in Havana even prostitutes have university degrees.

These are openings that good journalists (like champion prizefighters) dream about in their sleep: Could Castro's shame have something to do with his suppression of political dissent? What does it say about Cuba's economy that educated women must resort to seducing tourists to support themselves?

Stone neglects to follow up with appropriately tough questions in both instances. Shortly after the filmmaker delivered Comandante to HBO, Castro jailed 75 dissidents and executed three men who attempted to hijack a ferry. (The U.S. cable network decided not to air the film, although a new version of the documentary, with recent interviews of Castro, is scheduled for April.)

The controversy might lead viewers to conclude that while Stone has done a valuable job in Comandante in revealing Fidel, the man, he never comes close to capturing a greater quarry, the dictator, Fidel Castro.

Comandante on The Passionate Eye

Sunday, 10 p.m., Newsworld


 

 


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