Day: April 9, 2014

LFM Reviews Mad Dog: Inside the Secret World of Muammar Gaddafi on Showtime

By Joe Bendel. Muammar Gaddafi was responsible for the mass murder of man and camel alike. Never shy about executing those unfortunate enough to have their loyalty questioned, Gaddafi also once ordered the wholesale extermination of all camels within Tripoli, believing they were incompatible with his vision of a modern city. Yet, during his final years, Gaddafi traveled internationally with representative camels along with his ostentatious, bullet proof tent, and extensive entourage of female bodyguards. Even the animals never knew where they stood with the Libyan tyrant. The cruel and erratic nature of his dictatorship is documented in shocking detail throughout Christopher Olgiati’s Mad Dog: Inside the Secret World of Muammar Gaddafi, which premieres on Showtime this Friday.

It was President Ronald Reagan who dubbed Gaddafi a “mad dog” and history has vindicated him once again. Gaddafi initially charmed his neighbors and the regional media, but as the years progressed, his grandiose ambitions to become a modern day Saladin were largely derided within the Arab world. Instead, he tried to “re-brand” himself as the once-and-future “King of Africa,” launching a good will offensive aimed at Africa’s crowned royalty, despite his explicitly racist beliefs. At least, he always maintained mutually cordial relations with just about every terrorist group operating around the globe, including Carlos the Jackal, the PLO, and the IRA.

Nearly everyone will go into Mad Dog with the general understanding that Gaddafi was a bad guy, but the depths of his sadistic perversity are truly shocking. Olgiati thoroughly exposes Gaddafi’s crimes as a sexual predator, targeting young girls and boys alike, in a manner befitting Uday Hussein as immortalized in Lee Tamahori’s The Devil’s Double.

Indeed, Mad Dog uncovers many more truly bizarre revelations that are mystifyingly macabre (you could say he had a habit of keeping his political opponents on ice). To his credit, director-producer-cameraman Olgiati pushes his interview subjects to be precise and supply specifics. He never accepts vague implications, forcing them to spell out each and every incident under discussion. While most of the talking heads are surviving Libyan dissidents, there are a few hidden camera sequences with former regime insiders that are highly illuminating.

From "Mad Dog: Inside the Secret World of Muammar Gaddafi."

Perhaps the least substantiated passages within Mad Dog are the rather gossipy charges of CIA support for Gaddafi during his early days as a mini-mart for terrorists. However, Olgiati is on solid ground criticizing the overly optimistic campaign to rehabilitate Gaddafi (who by the way, was sitting on top of vast oil reserves). He also notably details ways in which Gaddafi exploited Islam to serve his propaganda purposes.

Olgiati paints a comprehensively damning portrait of Gaddafi, but it is also a well paced, compelling viewing experience. He certainly appreciates the spectacle of Gaddafi’s flamboyant vanity, but never loses sight of his brutal despotism. Recommended for anyone seeking insight into the Libyan revolution, Mad Dog: Inside the Secret World of Muammar Gaddafi airs this Friday (4/11) on Showtime.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 9th, 2014 at 11:21pm.

LFM Reviews The Second Game @ The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Art of the Real 2014

By Joe Bendel. It was sort of like the Romanian equivalent of the Army-Navy Game, but with bizarrely ominous implications. Dinamo was affiliated with the secret police, while Steaua was the Army team, handpicked by Ceausescu’s son. Corneliu Porumboiu’s father refereed a moderately memorable meeting of the two football (soccer) teams. He will revisit the videotapes of that snowy 1988 match with his filmmaker son throughout the low-fi un-doc-like The Second Game, which screens during the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Art of the Real film series.

Adrian Porumboiu was clearly the sort of ref who believed in putting the whistle in his pocket during pivotal moments of a game. Of course, it made a lot of sense to just let teams like Steaua and Dinamo settle it on the field, rather than risk deciding matters himself. Many aspects of the game have changed since 1988, including an EU mandate requiring the privatization of government agency affiliated teams. The fact that this match-up takes place a year before the fall of Ceausescu would seem to be highly symbolic, but neither Porumboiu overplays that card.

Instead, we hear far more regarding the senior Porumboiu’s thoughts on how to properly officiate a game, which is sort of interesting, for a while. Still, the less than pristine archival footage occasionally opens up a small window into the mechanisms of the Communist police state. Given the teams’ social-political significance, the cameramen never show the fighting or bouts of poor sportsmanship that periodically erupted on field, panning the crowd instead. Of course, this would leave home viewers inevitably confused when televised coverage finally resumed.

From "The Second Game."

It seems like there ought to be more there there to Second Game than there really is. While the circumstances surrounding the match are fascinating on paper, viewers are really just watching a twenty-six year old football match with occasional bits of color commentary. Frankly, the Porumboius do not pace themselves well, or even bother to turn off their cell phones.

If you cover film, Second Game offers a handy opportunity to examine how the totalitarian Socialist state manipulated mass media. If you actually want to immerse yourself in a cinematic experience, Porumboiu’s latest is a tough go. Of more interest to film students analyzing Porumboiu’s life and work (such as the deliberately paced but more rewarding Police, Adjective and 12:08 East of Bucharest) than those intrigued by the Cold War era, Second Game is odd programming choice for Art of the Real. For those determined to partake, it screens this Friday (4/11) and the following Monday (4/14) at the Francesca Beale Theater.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on April 9th, 2014 at 11:13pm.