The Fall of Fujimori

Either you become what you hate, or you fall victim to what you hate. THE FALL OF FUJIMORI can almost be viewed as a "political morality tale". This film demonstrates what happens when a hugely popular anti-terrorist Peruvian president transforms into something much worse than his enemy, or maybe, he does not. The filmmakers go out of their way to offer an in-depth, and multifaceted account of an important South American leader. And, in the end, I don't think that you can easily peg this man as a demon or a saint. I think that the case can be made that this man was a swindler and a crook, and, equally that he was a man who was absolutely driven by 'reform' at any cost. Maybe human beings, and especially political leaders, are just too convoluted to be pigeon holed. Absorbing and complex.

I was looking for a documentary of the same journalistic quality as Frontline or "Fog of War" (by Errol Morris). Instead I was appalled by this shallow and naive account of a very complex and disturbing man and his regime: Alberto Fujimori. This movie should be called "The return of Fujimori". The director presumes she made a "perfect" movie because alienates both pro and anti-Fujimori factions when in fact it is a very biased and unprofessional piece of work.

The movie has few crucial facts wrong:

1) She uses the so called "landslide" election of 1995 in which Fujimori was re-elected with 65% of the vote, as an example of the massive popular support of Fujimori. But we all now know to be the fruit of a very organized electoral fraud.

2) The movie states that Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) killed 60,000 people. In fact, the Truth Commission's final report states that there were 69,280 deaths due to political violence in Peru. 33% of those were caused by SL. That leaves the other 67% in the hands of the police, military and other groups. The fact that she uses the same misleading information that Fujimori has been using for 10 years it is another example of how terrible this movie is.

For any person with some education on Peruvian politics and history, Fujimori is clearly a consummated manipulator, a delusional character and remorseless egomaniac. His regime was very far from being democratic. He is still a menace to Peruvians. Despite these facts the director lets Fujimori tell the story. Not only on how he wants the camera to be positioned but the narrative and direction of the film seem to be part of his political agenda. He always seems to have the last word. There are no journalistic "cojones", just soft questions and unchallenged remarks. Where is Oriana Fallaci when we need her? The director, when questioned after the screening, didn't hide the fact that she was deeply impressed by Fujimori, his charm and intelligence. Yes, she has been definitely charmed by him, and you can tell by looking at this film. It's obvious she has a very hard time to digest the multitude of facts that point towards his responsibility on the corruption, murder and deception that took place. She assured the gasping audience that Fujimori was really a "patriot" when few moments earlier, one of the leading Peruvian journalists was very adamant in telling us that Fujimori was, above all, a "traitor". She went on to say that despite all the accusations not "a single dollar" was found on any bank account on his name, etc, etc. It was like hearing again the same gang of ruthless thugs that ruled the country for 10 years defending their master. It was a sad moment for journalism.

This film makes injustice to history. It is an insult to hundreds of dead people, disappeared or unjustly incarcerated by Fujimori's regime. No wonder she later confessed that all the Peruvian intellectuals she befriended while making the movie felt betrayed by it. Unbiased? The words "oportunistic", "naïve" and "denial" come to my mind instead.

Not a balanced point of view. The director shouldn't express her opinion as truth. The movie has some criticism of Fujimori but it always gives him and his family the last words. So few critics of Fujimori were provided that it seems the only reason they were included was to be able to say the movie provides both views. But that is not the case.

The movie barely shows one of the massacres that Fujimori is accused of. And it gives him credit for the masterminding the murdering of the MRTA insurgents that took the Japanese embassy. It is well documented that the CIA did the planning. There is even pictures of a well known CIA strategist on the site published by Caretas magazine and other newspapers.

The fact that such well known information was not used by the director gives us a few possible conclusions: the director is pro-Fujimori and purposely and falsely chooses to give the credit to him; the director does not want viewers to note that the CIA and Fujimori worked together; or it was just out of ignorance since the director is not Peruvian and was not present in Peru at the time the events occurred.

The explanation provided by other commentators, that Fujimori is still fairly popular in Peru, does not excuse the lack of accuracy and balanced explanations.

Also, the statistics provided in the movie for the actual support of Fujimori were the highest I have ever heard of. Most statistics by major poll agencies are much lower.

Another point to mention is that the intelligence that was key in the capture of the leader of Sendero and discover the secret network was done by a police force led by Ketin Vidal and he had complete autonomy from Fujimori and Montesinos.

The first government of Fujimori did experience an improvement in overall economic trends (GDP) but this improvement was financed by the privatization of several national industries with contracts that were not beneficial for the country in the long term. Also, the gap between rich an poor continued to increase during Fujimori's regime. In his second term the economy was suffering and there was nothing else to privatize and by the end of Fujimori's second term the economy was about to collapse.

In terms of investments in infrastructure of Fujimori's regime, they fallow the paternalistic pattern. They were created to raise support for Fujimori but were not meant to last long. These structures needed continued maintenance but Fujimori did not provide political power for the civilians in order to demand further investment. In fact, Fujimori's regime was able to destroy most forms of political organizing such as unions and grass-roots groups and the increase in informal unorganized labor was immense.

Finally, the director chose to spend most of the movie talking to Fujimori instead of citing the cases of massive corruption in favour of Fujimori (the Media, Business Owners, the Military, etc) that were so wide spread it was impossible that Fujimori was not aware of it.

I think it is a successful effort to portray an enormously complex set of facts in a very short amount of time. The film does show what the other commentators want to ignore: that Fujimori was probably the most popular politician in Peru's modern history. He was credited for saving Peru from the two-headed hydra: hyperinflation and Khmer Rouge-type terrorism. He was, as well, fatally flawed, and both sides are evenly shown in the film. The director managed to obtain some extraordinary footage: she includes, for instance, a home video taken by Hiro, Fujimori's teenage son, showing his dad and sinister Mr. Montesinos plotting how to cover something up. How did she manage to obtain that footage and also have unlimited access to the ex-president in exile? Given that the director is an attractive young American, perhaps the movie should more properly be called The Seduction of Fujimori.

A friend and I went to see this movie. We have opposite opinions about Fujimori but after watching this movie we agree on the following: the easiest way to have an inaccurate documentary is to make it about a foreign country in which you were not present when the events happened, no matter how talented or how much you invest in the film. If you are truly looking to learn about another countries history, watch something made by natives of that country otherwise you won't be able step away from your bubble. And those who try to force their views and opinions about something to which they don't belong are really abusing their power. To make it even worse, the director chose to not talk about the embarrassing involvement of the CIA with Fujimori's regime. She decides to evade dealing with the only subject for witch her country has much to explain to Peruvians. But this is not surprising because, both, the director and the CIA are violating the sovereignty of Peru by trying to affect the democratic processes at very different levels of course.

If the director was really interested in helping Peru she would have financed a native to make the documentary. In any case there are numerous Peruvian made documentaries, films and books about the subject. Such include "Ojos Que No Ven", "Dias de Santiago", "Montesinos-Fujimori: Las Dos Caras de la Misma Moneda", "Montesinos: Poderoso Caballero", etc. The director of the "Fall of Fujimori" should spend her time analyzing the numerous problems in her own country or at least the involvement of her country in the matters of other nations.