President of Romania from 1974 until 1989, Nicolae Ceausescu was a master of self-promotion, creating an erratic cult of personality around his rule. This three-hour epic is a breathtaking montage of state footage designed to glorify the megalomaniacal dictator—pageants, mass rallies, “candid” home movies. Hard to fathom now that we all know the horrors of his reign—the corruption, the grinding poverty, the genocide—but his image making worked. Queen Elizabeth knighted him, President Nixon paid him a visit, and Charles de Gaulle, Mao-Tse-tung, and Kim Jong Il all kept him company. Then it all came tumbling down; Romanian revolutionaries overthrew his government and he and his wife were executed before a firing squad. As edited here, with no explanatory narration, the footage has a fascinating cumulative effect: at first succeeding in its calculation to impress, it gradually exposes itself as the charade it is. An innovative, brilliant use of archival material, this film turns state propaganda on its head, deconstructing a public portrait while offering a searing commentary on totalitarianism—and all with exquisite subtlety.  ST