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Mi amigo Hugo
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Wikipedia article
'Mi amigo Hugo' is a Venezuelan television documentary produced by Venezuelan national broadcaster TeleSur and directed by the American Oliver Stone, a friend of Hugo Chvez, about the late President after his death.
Production
The documentary is a short look at the intimate life of Chvez, featuring interviews with his family, friends, and other Latin American politicians. Stone features in much of the film, conversing and embracing Chvez around different sites in Venezuela, with other notable people, like Fidel Castro, Nicols Maduro, Jos Vicente Rangel, and Elas Jaua, making smaller appearances.
The film was first shown on TeleSur on the first anniversary of Chvez' death, 5 March 2014.
Analysis
Cory Franklin, editorial member of the 'Chicago Tribune' and 'Washington Examiner', calls director Stone "Chavez's most ardent cheerleader" ('sic'), and describes the film as "worshipful" towards the leader and a "fulsome love paean"; it concludes that the film is cringeworthy, particularly in retrospect.
Jeffrey Tayler was critical of the film because he believed it would give support to Venezuela's supposed deification of Chvez at the time when the nation's economy was beginning to worsen and both citizens and the government "need to start reassessing their departed leader and begin thinking critically of the way ahead [...] the absolute last thing Venezuelans, or anyone else, needs is more Chvez agitprop". He also questioned Stone's ignorance of what he asserts were lies told straight to his face, and concludes that Stone "needs to evolve".
See also
*'South of the Border'
References
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