Bhutto Biopic: Filmmaker Got Rare Access to Tell Pakistani Family's Story

"Bhutto," a documentary examining the Greek tragedy of that Pakistani family -- with a special emphasis on the life, rise, and violent 2007 death of Benazir Bhutto -- premieres this weekend in theaters across the country. It is a harrowing, moving -- even wrenching -- film about history, family and sacrifice for country. It is also a magnificent and artful effort to bring audiences up to speed on Pakistani history, from partition to the present, throwing so many dates and facts out it's a bit like taking a crash course, a whole semester in 1 hour 51 minutes.

Benazir Bhutto was the first woman to lead a Muslim nation. Think what you will about her -- and there are those who question her role and accomplishments, laced as they were with allegations of inefficiency and corruption -- it is difficult not to find her rise and her legacy fantastic, even triumphant. Her untimely death, blamed by many on the failure of Pervez Musharaff's government to protect her when she returned from eight years of self-imposed exile, was a blow to Pakistani democracy, a blight on efforts to bring transparency and openness to the region.

But as much as the Bhutto family seemed blessed by good fortune, intelligence and beauty, the children of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto -- who himself served as both president and prime minister of Pakistan, brokered a famous peace agreement with India and later was ousted in a coup by his chief of staff -- eventually met catastrophe. Three of Zulfikar's children were assassinated. Only Benazir's sister, Sanam, the only apolitical Bhutto, was spared. (As for Zulfikar: After his ouster by Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, he was incarcerated and eventually executed.)

And yet Benazir seemed, from birth, someone who would transcend the limitations set on women in Pakistani society. This movie is an hommage to that transcendence. Not for nothing has it been called a hagiography. (NPR's term: "hero-worship.") But in celebrating Bhutto's life, its wide range of commentators -- especially the fantastic voice of Tariq Ali -- do not shy from questioning her legacy.

For some, the film by Duane Baughman is not new, nor is interest in it. "Bhutto" premiered at Sundance last winter and was shown in June to a sold-out crowd of Washington luminaries such as Nancy Pelosi, as Eleanor Clift reported at the time. In addition, many foreign policy scholars, politicians, and others in this country knew Benazir Bhutto -- who went to Harvard in the late 1960s and then Oxford after that -- as a friend or colleague or stateswoman. Baughman will be joined by Mark Siegel, Bhutto's longtime friend and U.S. spokesman, talking to audiences in Washington this weekend at the E Street Cinema.

I talked to Baughman by phone this week about making the film, and about its subject.

PD: I cover foreign policy, and I thought I knew the basics of Pakistani history, but I felt I learned a lot watching this film. Was that the goal?

DB: I think anyone who reads the New York Times every day feels that way, and the interesting thing is that you get to learn how much what we know is literally our own version of what other people want us to know. There is always a healthy dose of political messaging on Pakistan and United States relations with Pakistan. That was the beauty of funding the movie myself. I was free to go on any tangent I wanted to explore, to be able to lay out as clear a picture as I've seen. Benazir is the vehicle for being able to tell the story of Pakistan, and I don't think you can tell the story of Pakistan without telling the story of the Bhuttos.

PD: What led you to tell that story?

DB: I came to the film through my day job as an American political consultant and international consultant who has done work against dictators. . . . We were being vetted to get pulled into Benazir's race [for re-election -- an effort that was ended by her assassination in 2007] by Mark Siegel. . . . The work never came to pass. I realized I knew the people I needed to know to be an asset to the family. I also knew they didn't trust any Westerners. They got contacted by hundreds of filmmakers with resumes longer than mine -- partly because mine was non-existent! Once I had the trust and permission of the family, I knew I could get anyone else I needed to get on board. I had no idea it would end up being [former Secretary of State] Condi Rice or [former Pakistani President] Musharaff or [New York Times correspondent] John Burns. . . .

PD: And you spoke to Benazir's children and husband, so extensively and openly.

DB: The family was pivotal. I was fortunate enough to get the family for the first, and possibly the last, time on film. I got to the children, and the family as a whole because of Mark Siegel, and this movie would not have been made without the assistance of Mark. Mark . . . had the ear and the trust of the family and he convinced them that I could pull together all the required elements from Hollywood and from Washington.

PD: How did you go about trying to balance your coverage?

DB: I would go to bed at night having cold sweats, worrying that Pakistanis would say that Westerners don't understand our country or they don't understand our culture or our politics. It made me ultra-aware and ultra-sensitive, to make me dig as deeply as I could to get voices. . . . The first country that bought this film after we world-premiered at Sundance last year was Pakistan. It opened in June [and] had an extended run of two months. It was not only the first time a U.S. documentary was bought and run in Pakistani theaters, but it also ran to decent reviews and uncut, which was a true testament to freedom of expression and political expression, and it shows the care and feeding we did to be respectful of culture, country, religion, people and politics.

PD: Ultimately, the piece comes across as very, very pro-Bhutto, though you do have a few voices that call into question her story -- Fatima Bhutto, for example, her niece and the daughter of her murdered brother Murtaza. And there's an interesting moment when New York Times correspondent John Burns seems to almost imply that his story -- about corruption in Pakistan -- might not have been airtight.

DB: Fatima has made a cottage industry of criticizing her aunt. That's politics in Pakistan and it's a blood sport and a lot of times its feudal. . . . Her disdain for her aunt didn't begin when her father died but when she was born. . . . .The bottom line is what I tried to do was present facts and not opinions, and the fact was they were accused of a lot but they were not convicted of anything. You might not like Pakistani courts or elections, but it is not up to us and you have to trust to reach conclusions and justice. . . . Our foreign policy has been incredibly short-sighted. . . . Only now are we taking some of the proper, long-overdue steps with Kerry-Lugar (the bill which triples aid to Pakistan).

I think the story seems positive because I believe you can't make history in a positive way . . . and come across as anything but a heroine. Regardless of her human frailties, she broke a very significant barrier and there isn't anything anyone can do to undo that. She was constantly saying, "We are in office but we are not in power" in 1988 [ during her first administration]. The administration hadn't sat down and drawn up a plan for day 2. No one expected them to wrest power from the military or that the ISI [Inter Service Intelligence Pakistani Security Services] would allow it to happen.

The second time [in office -- Bhutto was elected prime minister twice], she was more savvy and had more of a vision and achieved more accomplishments, like the opening of thousands of women's police stations across the country, which, for the very first time, gave women a voice in legal maters and a safe haven to keep their voices heard on matters of justice. Even with those victories, her hands were tied on a daily basis, not just by a military that didn't salute -- not just didn't want to salute -- that didn't salute. One of the parties she formed a coalition with was a conservative Islamic party. It was like ruling in a box of knives; everywhere you turn you get cut. It is almost as difficult to believe that she succeeded, that she got there in the first place.