Mario Vargas Llosa: The Novelist Who Would Be President

Peru's most notable author surprised many when he decided to run for the presidency in 1989, dropped out of the race, and then re-entered the campaign. This documentary uses the background of the election to take a look at the life and work of the mucho-award-winning Vargas Llosa. "We are...living in a world where fiction and reality are intimately confused," he says, and certainly his flamboyant life, revealed in his semi-autobiographical novels, blurs the line more. The author reads from his works, and clips from filmed adaptations appear between the interviews and reportage. The tape ends in 1990 with the question of whether he would be the next president of Peru. Well, he isn't, of course: Alberto Fujimori won. And herein lies the biggest weakness of the tape. Since it's seven years out of date, viewers are left wondering who is president, and what is Vargas Llosa doing these days? Libraries with strong collections of literary biography may want to consider; but the lack of timeliness will not recommend it to most others. Aud: C, P. (R. Reagan)