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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