PARK CITY (Utah), Jan 27 An ambitious documentary featured at this week's Sundance Film Festival is taking a dual-track approach to delve into the fascinating life of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Jessica Hernandez and Johnny O'Hara's 'Bhutto', in competition at the major independent film showcase in the mountains of Utah, examines the many contours of Ms Bhutto's life.

But it also goes a step further, managing in just under two hours to place her tragic story in the broader context of Pakistan's history and its troubled relations with India.

“That was the most difficult thing - making sure that we are giving you an enormous amount of information,” co-director Hernandez told AFP. “And to make it entertaining was the only way to do that.”

Ultra-slick editing, dynamic music and graphics, animation - the directors pulled out all the stops to captivate their audience.

Producer Duane Baughman was quick to acknowledge that his “goal was to make it as commercial, as active, as exciting, as moving as commercial movies”.

It may be 115 minutes on the silver screen, but “that was the very minimum to get the story”, he added.

“We don't feel like there is anything extraneous in there that we could have cut without losing something. Of course, every filmmaker feels that, but when you are talking about a country and a person, it's pretty tough.”

And yet the highly polished, produced aspect of 'Bhutto' manages not to take away from its documentary strength.

The entire Bhutto family, friends and biographers sketch the portrait of a female figure who twice clinched victory as prime minister and was on a third run for power when she was killed in a gun and suicide attack two years ago.

For Hernandez, Benazir Bhutto “was polarising in many ways. The reasons speak so much about her, because there was a lot of things to say, on both hands”.

Not satisfied with outlining her compelling successes, including restoring democracy to Pakistan, the documentary also tackles the many accusations of corruption that marred her name and that of her husband Asif Ali Zardari. —AFP