A Masterpiece!

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Blistering performances.

I was pretty excited when I heard that a movie called Bhutto had been made. But this film is extremely disappointing. I'm sure people who know nothing of Bhutto will learn something, and perhaps the movie will appear novel to them. But this movie is a cursory examination of Bhutto. Go read the Wikipedia article on her and you will probably learn more.The film does take you through her life, but I found nothing of real interest there. There is no character analysis, so investigation of any controversy, no nothing. It's like its a high school students history essay on Bhutto.

A fascinating story of a woman and a family whose lives, like the Kennedy's in the US took on the dimensions of Greek myth or Shakespeare.The film-making itself is a little sedate and conventional, and the film feels a bit too much like hero worship (questions about Bhutto's failures and possible corruption are raised, but then raced by without much explanation). But whatever the complete truth of the politics (I'm no expert on Pakistan, I will admit) there's no question that this charismatic family changed history in Pakistan, with Benazir Bhutto being a truly revolutionary figure – the first female leader of a Muslim country (and one of the very short list of woman to ascend to power on the world stage). She championed both democracy and equal rights for women, saw her arraigned marriage bloom into real romance, all the while enduring terrible hardships and losses; seeing her family arrested, tortured and worse. She set an example for a moderate approach to Islam and government that seemed to give hope (to an outside observer at least) for a peaceful, non patriarchal, egalitarian future.

Bhutto (2010) is a frenetically overly edited documentary. The title suggests a study of the woman but it is rather a broad and omissive overview of the political history of Pankistan. The documentary begins with a sound bite from one of the most important and controversial interviews with Benazir Bhutto conducted by David Frost on the 2nd of November 2007. This interview is never referenced again possibly because it is too revelatory and against the establishment point of view. The omissive nature of the documentary mainly concerns US activity in Pakistan and Afganistan. Outright misinformation concerns Bin Laden and what is known as al-Qaeda.The best and most moving moments of the documentary are the interviews with the Benazir Bhutto's daughters and husband. It is of course true that Benazir Bhutto was a member of the elite establishment, in much the same way as John F. Kennedy but that background of privilege should not take away from their efforts towards peace and basic human rights. The result of their courageous struggle for peace and a better world resulted in the same fate.Pervez Musharraf living in elite comfort in the UK should be seen for what it is, state protection of a criminal.

While I appreciated some of the basic information given in the film. I found it to be too one sided on the whole. The film is more about Pakistan's political history rather than Bhutto herself and politics are generally not well suited for documentaries because there will always be radically opposing views. The film did not give much more insight to who really runs Pakistan than a reading of wikipedia would have given - now that would have made for an interesting film. Going into this I knew little of her but those thoughts were positive but coming out my thoughts are actually negative - obviously opposite to what was intended. I can't see her role as more than a figurehead. She belongs to an elite class (attended Harvard) and is from a radically different world than the vast majority of Pakistanis - so I can understand the foundations of distrust against her. Yes, she was charismatic but that's not enough to be a political power - she seemed out of her league and her presence in such a position of power, forced, likely installed by the elite class in the world. I don't condone the actions of the opposing faction but I can understand their antagonism.