Spring Break In Uganda
Posted on | April 13, 2008 at 3:11 pm | 3 Comments
Last night I finally got to see The Last King Of Scotland, which I’d been wanting to do for some time now. Like the HBO John Adams series and Showtime’s The Tudors, it’s “historical fiction”. (I put that one in there for those of you who say those two shows are not entirely accurate.) Scotland, like the book of the same name, goes them one better by inventing a completely fictional character and centering the movie around putting him into the historical events surrounding the rule of Idi Amin in the early 70s in Uganda. The fictional character Nicholas Garrigan is a young Scottish doctor who flees to Uganda to have some fun rather than getting stuck emulating his doctor father’s boring practice back in Scotland. And oh yeah, he says he wants to do some good, but really he’s just an excitement junkie. The character is played by Atonement’s James McAvoy as a charming but immature rogue who is used to getting what he wants.
So through a series of circumstances, he gets to be Amin’s personal physician and close adviser, and witnesses firsthand the dictator’s brutal spiral into oppression, paranoia, and madness (played well of course by Forest Whitaker in his Oscar-winning performance). At first he plays along, but as things get more and more out of hand, he just wants to go back and get away from all the killing and blood and all. Along the way, he manages to sleep with one of Amin’s wives and get her pregnant, which really didn’t seem to me like a smart thing to do.
This movie was not really what I was expecting. It had more of a thriller aspect than I thought it would. There’s a lot of suspense in wondering just when Amin is going to figure out how his Scottish friend has betrayed him, and whether or not our “hero” will escape. Some scenes are quite intense and the movie does not shy away from the shocking images. One gory scene involving a dead body, thoughtfully shown only in quick images, was particularly graphic and not for the squeamish. One torture scene went a bit too far and was like something out of Hellraiser, but the main problem I had with it was that I couldn’t believe the victim pretty much walked away from it.
One weird thing about my viewing experience: I totally did not recognize Gillian Anderson in the movie. I knew she was in it from the opening credits, but I forgot after that. Her character Sarah has long blond hair, and I did not recognize her as Anderson and I did not connect the two until I was watching the end credits.
As these kinds of films/shows have been doing to me lately, it made me interested in looking up the real facts and story. I was fairly young when the events depicted in the movie happened, but I do remember Amin and especially the Entebbe hostage situation, which figures into the climax of the movie. The documentary on the DVD also shed some light on the real Idi Amin and what he was like. So I learned a lot about a period of world history. Though the movie was not the greatest, it was entertaining and it increased my knowledge. So, it was a good evening spent watching it. Oh, and the picture looked fabulous from the DVD played on my PS3 upconverted to 1080p.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 36°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “You Need Love” (The Wondermints)
- “Tearing Up the Oxygen” (Maritime)
- “Rocket Science” (Brain Surgeons NYC)
- “Such Little Nonbelievers (live)” (Loud Family)
- “Ten Feet Tall” (Pidgin)
- “Roman” (The Church)
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “safeway personal lubricant reviews”.
Comments
3 Responses to “Spring Break In Uganda”
April 13th, 2008 @ 8:18 pm
Did they play the “Idi Amin” song? (cue a reggae beat):
“Idi, Idi, Idi Amin!
Mos’ amazing mon, dere’s ever been…
He be General, he President, he King of the Scene!
Idi, Idi, Idi Amin.”
It was pretty funny to me at the time, but then I was a teenager and my knowledge of the global situation lacked a certain nuance.
…”Take Hitler, Stalin, Attila de Hun,
No one got a good word for a single one!
Where ‘deez first class geniuses all going wrong?
They never got the population, singing along!”
April 14th, 2008 @ 7:58 am
Did they play the “Idi Amin” song?
Yes they did, actually. Although that may’ve been in the documentary. I remember thinking the “King of the Scene” line was odd – just there for the sake of the rhyme.
April 14th, 2008 @ 4:52 pm
Wow, that rocks! First time I’m able to post a comment even tangentially related to music, and it turns out relevant as well. Thanks, Idi!