The Fall of Fujimori

First, let me say the sheer amount of the footage and the editing are astounding. Often historical documentaries rely mainly on their voice-over narration, and linger a long time over their relatively few visuals. Not here. Here the visuals change quite rapidly - you might even be tempted to reach for your "freeze frame" once in a while. And here the variety and depth of the visuals are almost dizzying. Archival and new footage are inter-cut seamlessly. There are so many snippets of archival footage I started to feel sorry for the person whose job it was to obtain the "rights", then eventually realized that task would have been just plain impossible and there must have been some confluence of events that put most of these snippets in the public domain.

I particularly appreciated the portrayal of Fujimori as an ambiguous figure who did some great things. Knowing now of the human rights abuses and the corruption during his administration, it's too easy to pigeonhole him as just an "evil monster". But the film makes us face the fact this all-black portrayal is too cut-and-dried -- this was some kind of gray, and although most would now judge that the high cost wasn't worth the benefit, that's still somewhat debatable. U.S. presidents too have been known to do things that were motivated mostly by politics (for example check out Bill Clinton's "wag the dog" episode) -- how is that different from the kind of "corruption" the film shows Fujimori engaging in? Just how many shades of gray are there really?

This is a sort of "narrative newsreel", telling a story from beginning to end over more than a decade, rather than restricting itself to just breaking news. All the key events are at least mentioned. To those expert in the field, I suspect the film will seem comically simplified. For the rest of us though, the story and events will initially be mostly unfamiliar, and we'll get seriously educated. Because the time span is so long and individual events covered so briefly, a person with no background at all will probably need to watch this two or three times (at least once listening to the director's commentary on the DVD) and read at least the Wikipedia entry on Alberto Fujimori.

But, what was astounding at the time seems just a few years later to not be very relevant. The whole narrative arc of the film was constructed as a "cautionary tale" to the U.S. about how over-zealous pursuit of "terrorists" can lead to great societal evils. Fujimori is presented as a person whose goal was to suppress some serious terrorism, but who made questionable Faustian bargains to do it and wound up being hounded out of office.

That "cautionary tale" is _not_ what I was looking for though (in fact it's possible I would have been disappointed even back in 2005:-). I wanted especially to "understand" Fujimori, and that's not what I got. Here's what I was looking for:

To understand the man, start with a brief description of his parents and his childhood. (In fairness, the film does mention birth date and place. But it sheds no light on any possible psychological effects.) Also, describe some of the psychological impacts in his impressionable late teens and early 20's. The film lets stand unchallenged the idea Fujimori was formerly "just a professor", and also both shows us and tells us that he was both a polished and sensitive politician and a skilled administrator and political infighter. (Given the director's hint about how many coup attempts Fujimori survived, he must have been highly skilled just to stay in office.) If he really was "just a professor", where did this skill come from?

Then tell us something of the context of Peru. Is it really true, as Fujimori claims, that what went on in Peru in his administration was "more democratic" than in any other Latin American country? (Maybe the line between "democracy" and "populism" is less clear than we like to think.) What's the racial composition of Peru: what proportion of Asians? are the "native" and "Spanish" peoples thoroughly mixed, or still rather separate? is the urban/rural divide in Peru typical of Latin America? Why is Peruvian politics so volatile, with disgraced politicians being freshly elected only a few years later? How have previous Peruvian leaders behaved, and why were so many of them "strong" leaders? A few hints in the film suggest the urban/rural and elite/peasant divide is extremely wide, so much so it's hard to understand how the country can be governed at all - what's the real truth?

Also, tell us how Peru related to the international power politics of the time. There are tantalizing hints of connections to the U.S. CIA and to the drug wars in Colombia. The U.S. foisted its "he's an S.O.B, but he's _our_ S.O.B" attitude on the world quite a bit previously. But by Fujimori's time the Berlin Wall had fallen and the superpower struggle seemed to be over. Was Peru a victim of the hangover of older U.S. international attitudes?

Finally, try to parse Fujimori's personality while in power. His wife went from being quite happy with their marriage to divorcing him in just a few years. Why? He apparently had some serious detractors even back then. Can we hear from them?

There are hints not only Vladimiro Montesinos (Fujimori's "Rasputin") but Fujimori himself siphoned off millions of dollars into offshore accounts. And there are hints Fujimori engaged in some seriously corrupt acts _before_ his war on terrorism. Neither hint is at all consistent with the narrative arc about the over-zealous pursuit of "terrorists". Seemingly something deeper motivated Fujimori - what was it?

This film was riveting and informative. It announces the arrival of a very talented director, Ellen Perry. She practices the fine art of "access" journalism with the assurance of a master, and she has told a very important story in a very disturbing and exciting way.

The film combines so many levels of accomplishment that the effect is dizzying. Not only did she obviously get the scoop of a long personal interview with the exiled leader who has refused to talk to anyone else, but she gets him to answer and the discuss the hard "questions" of his tenure; his response to terrorism, the suspension of democratic institutions and principles, the use of criminal and paralegal entities to support the State. And she weaves these revelations into a very slickly produced, explosive package. She got the scoop; she did the research; she masters the story, and the medium.

Fujimori is a high practitioner of postmodern politics, as the movie reveals through interleaved interviews and gobsmacking historical videography by some of the most talented and brave of videographers. Just that video, edited to tell a long story concisely, would be the best meditation on postmodern politics I have seen. When these scenes are combined with Fujimori talking or trying to talk about his tenure, the effect is at turns disturbing, enlightening, touching, and telling. From the shots of the dark night of the auto-coup to Fujimori riding his bicycle through Lima on a post Martial Law landslide election victory tour through streets full of the people, to Montesinos et al.; what struck this viewer was how close, and how unexotic, how contemporary Peru really is.

The movie focuses, wisely on telling Fujimori's story and on letting the gaps in his answers and in the story speak for themselves. All the information in this movie is officially accurate, by the way, but the film in no way attempts to impart a mountain of information, nor should it. It succeeds as a film precisely as it is spectacular, and in the way that it reveals gaps in the spectacle. The placid face of Fujimori or his daughter constantly smiling are juxtaposed against terrible acts and terrible decisions. You are left pondering both the legacy and the power and effectiveness of Fujimori. Populist or demagogue; selfless statesmen or wily tyrant? At one point in the film, Fujimori meta-comments on his spectacular use of a caged Guzman in stripes, in another he meta-comments on his "hostage crisis" and its brutal and successful resolution as a video plays next to him. The film introduces little gaps and meta-commentary to uncanny effect; the no-nonsense objective demeanor of the technocratic manager's manager comes off as sheer unreality (Fujimori is better than the best of actors). How does he do it? To acknowledge his effectiveness is not to promote him.

This is history as it is happening now. Fujimori emerges as the paradigmatic politician of our day; his instinctive populism is as genuine as the terrors behind the placid facade are real. He is a model for what George Bush wishes he could be; he is both a more skilled and more genuine leader and he had greater power to institute authoritarian policy; exercise authority he did, and most frightening of all, the people loved him for it. None of that is justification for authoritarianism, and that is the subtle point of a movie that is cautionary. Patriotism is no justification for tyranny; patriotism is a love for one's country and no justification for criminal acts. Charisma is no justification for authoritarianism either; it is a skill, a talent, and a fascination. Beware the skilled populist.

Access journalism must balance a commitment to tell the story from the perspective of the sources with an equal commitment to objective history. Perry does an excellent job. Draw your own conclusions.

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.

The movie was a riveting account of the personal struggles of a man thrust into the daunting position of leading an entire country out of chaos that was Peru in the 1980's. Not only was it educational for me from a historical perspective, the director Ellen Perry did well to add a human dimension to the drama. The viewers were able to see how the dramatic and traumatic events of an entire nation and of ultimate responsibility personally affected Mr. Fujimori and his family.

Ms. Perry did well to give the viewer the space to decide their own verdicts and make their own opinions. I could see why Japan reveres the exiled leader as a hero. I could see why he is hated by some. She balanced the factual documentary style with the energy of human drama to make the film well worth watching.

For Ms. Perry to have a film of this magnitude under her belt at such a young age, speaks volumes about her abilities and gives everyone much to look forward to.

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.