Dear Dom: beyond the hero-villain dichotomy

Dear Dom depicts Mintoff as a dual personality, a statesman with a sense of brinkmanship and vision whose rule was tainted by authoritarian and despotic traits. Ellul is fair in presenting these two sides of Mintoff, for example showing him at his best squeezing money from the British in his dealings with Lord Carrington, while giving voice to victims of Mintoff's rule.

But Pierre Ellul was overtly ambitious in attempting to pass a historical judgement on Mintoff's legacy in a letter, which anchors the documentary. The end result of this was that viewers were given just a glimpse into a multitude of complex issues and events, juxtaposed into a simplistic narrative that Mintoff first fought for change and then against it.

People unfamiliar with such episodes as the Catholic interdiction, the National Bank's nationalisation, the doctors' strike, and import substitution, were probably carried away with their own preconceptions and prejudices rather than open themselves to new interpretations: the fleeting references to Karen Grech and Raymond Caruana are a clear example of the film's superficial treatment of some of the topics raised; the doctors' strike is not grounded in the perennial context of our medical establishment and its domination by private practitioners.

In some ways, Dear Dom is too long to simply provide a taste of the Mintoffian era and too short for the many questions it poses on the issues it raises.

I enjoyed watching the film for its gems of historical memories, but by the end of it I felt exhausted and drained, having little time to digest and process the commentaries and the powerful images shown.

That said, I profoundly disagree with those who expect any documentary on a controversial figure like Mintoff to be neutral, objective and balanced. These people seem to forget that we are simply viewing an artistic production based on the author's subjective experiences. Tariq Ali's and Christopher Hitchens's documentary on Mother Teresa (Hell's Angel) are examples of a genre which is unforgiving towards popular idols. In comparison Dear Dom is quite timid.

Neither should the documentary be treated as an academic work where everything must be referenced or sourced.

By writing his own letter to Mintoff, Ellul was intellectually honest as he did not hide behind the mask of objectivity.

Moreover, mainly thanks to Lino Spiteri's commentary, the film was grounded in a historical context, which veered from a black vs. white narrative. Spiteri excelled in his analysis of Mintoffian economics, which although seriously flawed was grounded in a context and a vision of full employment. It also frustrated the growing aspirations of an emancipated working class.

What I find flawed in Ellul's narrative is that it takes the easy way out, that of depicting Mintoff as some sort of dual personality, a hero turned villain. I tend to see these attributes as two sides of the same coin, the result of structural and ideological factors, rather than of personal character traits.

In this sense Mintoff's war against the colonial and clerical establishment generated affinities with an anti-colonial ideology, which invariably degenerated in the cronyism and thuggery which characterised "socialism" in many former colonies. 

Mintoff's aversion to checks and balances must be seen in the light of the politics that prioritised nation-building over legal niceties, and the perception that the legal institutions served the interests of the dominant elites.

Such a structural reading does not absolve Mintoff of the very personal pain he inflicted on those who disagreed with him. Neither should it rob him of the respect of those who felt emancipated by the social reforms he enacted.

What stands out mostly about Mintoff is that he was definitely a secularist and a social reformer; but definitely not a liberal democrat. No wonder in his later years he felt the need to advise fellow anti-colonialist turned despot, Robert Mugabe.

This is why I find the negative reaction to the film from part of the Maltese left-wing inexplicable. The very suggestion by his daughter (and prospective Labour candidate) Yana Mintoff that the family is seeking legal advice on a documentary is reminiscent of the worse aspect of the Mintoff legacy, a profound intolerance to criticism. 

In reality one of the weaknesses of the film is that it fits the Mintoffian paradigm.  Even in his excesses, Mintoff is still depicted as fighting the establishment (doctors and bankers) when reality was far more complex than that.

Under his rule, military discipline was also imposed on various categories of workers, the Faculty of Arts was closed down, intellectuals of all hues were shunned in the name of a crude workerism, the trade union movement tamed through a fusion of union and party, and while some businesses like BICAL were broken down arbitrarily, other businessmen and speculators were busy building theirs. This is hardly the stuff which invites left-wing veneration. In fact Mintoff's veneration raises deep existential questions on the DNA of the Maltese left.

Another flaw of Dear Dom is that with the exception of the Nationalist dockyard worker, its interviewees give the perspective of the privileged classes. It does not make them wrong or Mintoff right... the National Bank shareholders were probably right. But the film is lacking in offering the perspective of other voices.

There is only a fleeting reference to the impact the welfare state had on the lives of the masses. But there is also little reference to the cheap labour conditions in the new factories he built.

Neither is there any reference to the crony capitalism (based on collusion with corrupt ministers like Lorry Sant), which characterised those years.

Equally absent is any reference to popular culture, music, and everyday life, which could have given the documentary a different sort of context from the more clinical analysis, offered by Lino Spiteri.

The narrative does not penetrate deeply in what was happening in the social fabric, something which I have so far only found in the literary works of Immanuel Mifsud, particularly in l-Istejjer Strambi ta' Sara Sue Sammut.

Pierre Ellul should be congratulated for stepping on dangerous territory shunned by artists and academics alike. But I have to say that I left the cinema more dazed than enlightened.