Film review: "Fidel: The Untold Story"

Today my colleague Sean Murphy posted his review of the movie Fidel: The Untold Story on the Foreign Policy Association’s Global Film Review blog. Check out his commentary on the 2001 film here. 

Also note the blurb from the Miami Herald on the movie poster above: “Infuriating and fascinating! Required viewing.”

Particularly incredible in the documentary is the access Estela Bravo, the director, received in her filming. Bravo obtained original and rare interviews with Fidel and exclusive footage from Cuban state archives. In the film, one sees Fidel Castro swimming with his bodyguards, visiting his childhood home and school, joking with his friend Nelson Mandela, meeting with Elian Gonzalez, and celebrating his birthday with the Buena Vista Social Club.

These are incredible personal windows into the past and present of a man whose life has been particularly surrounded by mystery in more recent years—such scenes are no doubt the impetus for the  “fascinating” descriptor in the Miami Herald blurb.

The other, “infuriating,” is likely due to the fact that the film glaringly omits any mention of the many who have suffered from oppression under Fidel’s rule, as Sean Murphy points out.

But the verdict remains: this is required viewing.