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Barbet Schroeder's darkly comic portrait of Ugandan despot Idi Amin is an object lesson in the trade-offs of documentary access. Though the filmmaker was granted two weeks at the charismatic leader's side, his footage is less an inside look at Amin's brutal regime than a showcase of the dictator's self-image, featuring triumphal rallies and elaborate displays of military might brazenly staged for Schroeder's lens. Only safely back in France did the director record voiceover narration to complicate these simplistic displays of patriotic fervour, and bestow the film with its provocative subtitle: "A Self-Portrait". To his surprise, Amin's power to obstruct the film soon followed Schroeder back to Europe: after the dictator held more than a hundred French residents of Uganda hostage, the filmmaker acceded to Amin's demanded cuts, which were restored only after his ousting from power in 1979.