Offers a completely one-sided view of Castro and his life and career.
Comment
11/18/08
Fidel (2002)
60
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:20
Fresh:12
Rotten:8
Average Rating:5.6/10
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Genre: Education/General Interest
US Box Office: $0
Synopsis: This biographical documentary takes a rousing, invigorating, emotional look at one of the most complex and endearing figures of 20th Century global politics, Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Through a... [More]
Starring: Fidel Castro, Alice Walker, Harry Belafonte, Sydney Pollack
Director: Estela Bravo
Reviews for Fidel
1 - 20 (sorted by critic A-Z; Australian critics are listed first)
Full of detail about the man and his country, and is well worth seeing.
01/31/03
Bravo reveals the true intent of her film by carefully selecting interview subjects who will construct a portrait of Castro so predominantly charitable it can only be seen as propaganda.
03/11/03
A landmark work that should have viewers across the world reaching for history books to learn not only politically expedient accounts of Fidel’s life, but also the real deal.
01/27/04
We get an image of Big Papa spanning history, rather than suspending it.
10/15/02
The lack of opposing viewpoints soon grows tiresome -- the film feels more like a series of toasts at a testimonial dinner than a documentary.
10/17/02
Has the kitsch appeal of a farm implement on a restaurant wall, or an Andy Warhol Mao poster: Interesting, but not for its original purpose.
01/31/03
It's a refreshing change from the self-interest and paranoia that shape most American representations of Castro.
03/06/03
An exhilarating experience.
10/18/02
Audiences will find no mention of political prisoners or persecutions that might paint the Castro regime in less than saintly tones.
01/03/03
Makes an aborbing if arguable case for the man's greatness.
01/31/03
Sacrifices the value of its wealth of archival foot-age with its less-than-objective stance.
10/18/02
This is an exercise not in biography but in hero worship.
10/17/02
Top CriticAn overview portrait more impressionistic than anything else, hardly psychologically plumbing... Still, leftist politics aside, the film undeniably works on a human level.
03/10/03
Ninety minutes of Viva Castro! can be as tiresome as 9 seconds of Jesse Helms' anti- Castro rhetoric, which are included
10/17/02
Purely propaganda, a work of unabashed hero worship, it is nonetheless -- and likely inadvertently -- a timely and invaluable implicit reminder of the role that U.S. foreign policy has played in the rise of Castro.
03/06/03
Top CriticAlthough Estela Bravo's documentary is cloyingly hagiographic in its portrait of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, it's still a guilty pleasure to watch.
12/06/02
Top CriticAny film that doesn't even in passing mention political prisoners, poverty and the boat loads of people who try to escape the country is less a documentary and more propaganda by way of a valentine sealed with a kiss.
03/07/03
No review available.
07/27/05
No review available.
11/25/02
1 - 20 (sorted by critic A-Z; Australian critics are listed first)
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