"House of Saddam" covers a quarter century of the Iraqi dictator's ruthless rule over his people. The filmmakers play it straight: they depict the political and historical developments the way Saddam was believed to have viewed them--that Kuwait was unfair and foolish to have increased oil production in the late 1980s/early 1990s, that the Iraqi government believed it had received private assurances from the U.S. ambassador to Iraq that Americans would not interfere with an Iraqi-Kuwaiti conflict, and that Iraq was a world hero standing alone athwart the frightening menace of post-revolutionary Iran.
Although the film lets Saddam Hussein speak for himself without interjecting serious voices of political opposition, the mini-series does not excuse or minimize Saddam's villainy or extreme paranoia. Saddam murders his enemies, and at times renders even shabbier treatment to those closest to him. Saddam kills his best friend to demonstrate his ability to be tough. Saddam cashiers his own half brother, head of his personal security, in favor of an ambitious ruffian from Saddam's father's family. He arranged the murder of his wife's brother and his daughters' husbands.
What gives "House of Saddam" panache is the luxurious production values, the soapy melodrama of the family (Uday's serial addictions, Saddam's love affair with his future second wife, the plucky austerity of Saddam's mother), and casting actors who are sexier and more stylish than the real people they played. This is how history should be told—with personality and flare.
Although the film lets Saddam Hussein speak for himself without interjecting serious voices of political opposition, the mini-series does not excuse or minimize Saddam's villainy or extreme paranoia. Saddam murders his enemies, and at times renders even shabbier treatment to those closest to him. Saddam kills his best friend to demonstrate his ability to be tough. Saddam cashiers his own half brother, head of his personal security, in favor of an ambitious ruffian from Saddam's father's family. He arranged the murder of his wife's brother and his daughters' husbands.
What gives "House of Saddam" panache is the luxurious production values, the soapy melodrama of the family (Uday's serial addictions, Saddam's love affair with his future second wife, the plucky austerity of Saddam's mother), and casting actors who are sexier and more stylish than the real people they played. This is how history should be told—with personality and flare.