I went to two films this weekend, both dramas, which meant that I got to see the first wave of “For Your Consideration” Oscar contending previews. They look like an ominous bunch this year, nary a lighthearted one to be seen, although plenty of gripping ones.
In the way of Hollywood, we have some odd zeitgeist happening, or zeitgeists as the case may be, with several films mirroring each other in their peculiar topics. We have multiple entries in 50s Noir, African Turmoil, and Turn of the Century Magicians. We also have Good Cop/Bad Cop and Future and Historic Dystopian Societies.
Watch them all carefully, though. It’s easy money that these will be the films on Oscar’s list next winter.
First up, with rumbling soundtrack, is The Last King of Scotland. We see a fresh-faced young man spinning a globe and saying, “Wherever my finger lands, that’s where I’ll go.” A finger lands on Uganda and there was a palpable sinking feeling in the audience.
A man behind me made a noise like he’d been gut punched and the young person (not a child, but 20’s maybe) said “What?”
The man said, “Idi Amin.”
His neighbor asked, “Who?”
“Don’t you remember Idi Amin?”
“No.”
The man just exhaled again.
“Watch,” he said.
The story is about the young man, a Scot, who cheerfully went off to Uganda to practice medicine, and was taken under Amin’s wing. The young man’s face looks familiar, but you probably won’t remember the last time you saw him. He was walking on his hind hooves as one Mr. Tumnus in the Narnia movie. His name is James McAvoy.
The preview gives us the gist of a naïve Westerner who is charged up, like the rest of Uganda in early days, at Amin’s verve, promises, and willingness to flip the metaphorical bird to the West.
Forest Whitaker, a criminally underrated actor, is totally riveting as Amin. He clearly understands that the way men become great tyrants usually begins with an overwhelming amount of charm. The death squads come later.
It was hard to watch, honestly. I was a child, born in ’69, when it all went down and yet there is a feeling of embarrassment and rage watching it. You realize all of this took place before CNN and 24 hour insta-news. Maybe it was easier to hide 300,000 dead people back then. We live in CNN land now and it did not help the Rwandans or the citizens of Darfur. The preview, really, is challenging us to witness the start of something we still have not finished.
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