South of the Border (Sunday, July 4, 2010) (66)

This is a polemic piece by Oliver Stone about the rise of Leftist/Socailist leaders in Latin American politics and how they have all succeeded in kicking off the shackles of the U.S.-backed IMF. Oliver Stone, a man nobody needs to hear from ever, is an ass who tells about a third of the story of each of the leaders he concentrates on. This is not really a full picture of the Latin Left, but merely Stone's view of it. It is also as much about him as it is about these leaders, an arrogant twist on an already silly project.

I'm about as Left as you get politically, and have a specific, if limited, interest in Latin American politics. I think I know a fair amount about most of the players involved in this piece, so there was nothing all that new about the material. This is yet another arrogant and silly part of this work: It has a limited audience of people who are interested in the topic, but it doesn't go very far past the surface level of newspaper headlines describing any of the politicians. It's an introduction to these people, with basically no analysis of them or their positions.

The first person Stone visits is Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. He accurately tells Chavez's story of how he tried a coup d'etat in the early 1990s, but failed, went to jail, ran for president and won in 1999. Stone talks in glowing terms about how Chavez has helped the poor, gotten rid of IMF regulations and been a super-popular, super-great person in his country. Stone says nothing about Chavez's critics, nothing about his iron-fisted control of media, nor how he shut down television and newspapers critical of him and nothing of the persisting poverty that surrounds him. As a Leftist, I can say that Chavez is far from perfect or desirable.

Stone then goes to a bunch of other leaders, including Evo Morales of Bolivia (who has never said much that I have been able to argue with or support - he's still a bit of cipher to me until he takes a stronger position on things), the Kirchner's of Argentina (who are more center-left than anything, but strongly anti-IMF), Lula of Brazi (also a center-leftist who got rid of the IMF) and Raul Castro (a favorite among American Leftist elites, despite his documented cruelty during his brother's long tenure). Several times the leaders suggest that it's an honor for them to meet Stone (and of course he keeps these lines in the film, as if we are supposed to know that Stone is a great man too).

Interestingly Stone never mentions Michelle Bachelet of Chile who was the president when he was shooting most of the other interviews in early 2009. It is not clear what he didn't like about her - though she does seem a bit more even-handed with her rhetoric, and much more of a French-type socialist than a Bolivarian firebrand.

The whole film says nothing about the bad things these leaders have done or their failures. I never mentions anything negative about Castro or Chavez, two men who could have books written about their dark sides, and never really examines the net effect of the re-valuation of the Argentine peso under Nestor Kirchner. This is mostly a vanity piece for Stone to show off how special he is because he can get to interview these leaders. It's frustrating and incomplete.

Stars: .5 of 4