Beautiful and haunting, The Last King of Scotland tells the story of the rise to power of Idi Amin (an extraordinary Forest Whitaker), as seen through the eyes of a young Scottish doctor, Nicholas Garrigan (an equally convincing James McAvoy) who unwittingly becomes his personal physician. The movie, which is based on Giles Foden's homonymous novel, skillfully moves between the everyday normality and underlying brutality of Amin's regime, which killed an estimated 300,000 Ugandans.
I was left with a strange sense of emptiness, not really understanding what generated these dark forces of Amin's dictatorship, which are progressively unleashed during the course of the film. Nicholas himself, despite living at the heart of the regime (or perhaps because he lived at the heart of the regime), appears blisfully naive (almost delusional) in his denial of what surrounds him. This is perhaps the only criticism I can move at the film: the shallow political analysis, which contains a lingering echo of Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', leaves the audience with a sense that the Africa itself, somehow, is responsible for these aberrations, rather than specific individuals, processes, dynamics. On the other hand, the only ones that appear at least in some form of control are the British diplomats at the High Commission, and the film suggests that Amin's rise was simply a white-controlled scheme horribly gone wrong. Again, the Africans/Ugandans themselves seem only pawns in a game that no one seems to know the rules of. Indeed, in the final, excruciating scene, Amin rebukes Nicholas for playing a game without realizing what was at stake, and certainly the naivety of his character is unbelievable even for a provincial Scottish lad in the 1970s.
Nevertheless, the film is - if not a masterpiece - clearly superior. Beutifully shot, wonderfully acted (apart from Whitaker and McAvoy, I loved the performance of Kerry Washington as Amin's third wife), it's the kind of movie that will collect tens of nominations, if not prizes.
(Oh! And I can't wait to see James in the forthcoming Becoming Jane!)
1 comment:
That's saved me from having to post about it - thanks! I rather agree with you: once again, it's the whites that are in control while the Africans are mad, dangerous or victims. Although, to be fair, Amin was both mad and dangerous.
And I've stolen your "hot-link preview site feature thingy" and added it to mine (though it seems to have upset the picture loading fucntion of my site, which will serve me right for stealing your ideas).
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