The trailer has arrived for Oliver Stone’s documentary “South Of The Border,” and it looks like a doozy. What originally started as a documentary on Venezualan president Hugo Chavez, became a bigger look at South American politics as a whole, and the American media and economic influence on the continent.
The film will be premiering at the Venice Film Festival, but unless it is greeted with nothing less than rave reviews, don’t hold your breath about seeing this in theaters anytime soon. A documentary on South American politics is a tough sell on its own, but the director’s sympathetic views on leaders that some call dictators is a touchy issue for any studio. His little-seen 2003 documentary on Fidel Castro, “Commandante,” was criticized in some circles for being too hands off and is still unavailable on DVD in North America.
As controversial and lefty as it might sound Stone frames it as a media-uncovering look at South America and its leaders. “As is often the case, the man I met was not the man I’d read and heard about in the US media,” he told the Guardian in a piece he wrote for the paper. “I was able to return in January 2009 to interview President Chávez in more depth. Was Hugo Chávez really the anti–American force we’ve been told he is? Hopefully, in our film, you’ll get to hear a far different side of the ‘official’ story.”
Stone goes back to big budget productions this fall, when he begins work on “Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.” Michael Douglas reprises his role as the skeezy Gordon Gekko who influences a young hotshot played by Shia LaBoeuf. Susan Sarandon, Josh Brolin, Frank Langella and soon-to-be Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan also star.