Gaddafi: Our Best Enemy (2011)

Directed by: Antoine Vitkine | 95 minutes | documentary

The year 2011 will go down in history as the year in which the Arab Spring dominated the news bulletins and newspapers. In several countries in North Africa and the Middle East, the population rose up against the ruling regimes. The great powers in the West were particularly interested in the events in Libya, a country with an invaluable wealth of oil and gas. The eccentric leader of the North African country, Muammar Gaddafi (different spellings are used, we’ll stick to this one) ruled with a heavy hand for 42 years. In 1969, he staged a coup d’état, deposing King Idris I, who had led the country to independence twenty years earlier. Gaddafi introduced his own political philosophy; a combination between Islamism and populist socialism and tried to establish a Pan-Arab union following the example of his idol Nasser. Gaddafi saw himself not only as the leader of Libya, but of the entire Arab world, as the documentary ‘Gaddafi: Our Best Enemy’ (2011) by the young French director Antoine Vitkine teaches us.

The film examines the former colonel’s reign in detail and shows how he acted as a major financier of numerous terrorist movements in the 1970s and 1980s. Gaddafi was constantly at odds with western powers such as the US, Britain and France. Several influential and directly involved political advisers from those countries are given the floor. It’s a shame that Vitkine doesn’t introduce them and you actually have to infer from their story who they are and which side they are on. Unfortunately we don’t get names. Fortunately, some speakers are so well known that they need no introduction: none other than Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice speak. In particular, they speak of the time when the elusive Gaddafi, who for years troubled the West with his cunning, made his overtures to the US, Britain and France. Though you were never quite sure whether he meant what he said or not.

‘Our Best Enemy’ is a carefully documented film that offers a wealth of information for anyone interested in world politics and wanting to know what goes on behind the scenes. With informative archive images and many interesting talking heads, Antoine Vitkine manages to paint a rich picture of the unassailable phenomenon of Moammar Gaddafi. Although, untouchable…? The film ends with the Arab Spring and, as a result of the uprisings, the hunt and eventual killing of the ‘Brother Leader’, as Gaddafi was called domestically. In relation to the carefully thought-out rest of the film, the ending is a bit rushed. Typical case of ‘we have to strike while it’s hot and release the film as soon as possible after his death’ perhaps? Be that as it may, the rushed ending – with the lack of ‘nameplates’ – is one of the few downsides to this otherwise excellent and highly informative documentary.