Sunday, December 3, 2017

                                                              APARTHEID
One of the biggest social tidal waves of our time was the end of apartheid in South Africa and the rise of a black majority government. It is a story worth telling and the movies have done a good job of telling it. 
There are two versions of Alan Paton’s monumental Cry, The Beloved Country. Sidney Poitier lights up the 1951 version as a simple back-country preacher intertwined by fate with a white bigot. The 1995 version features an equally-impressive James Earl Jones, along with Richard Harris. Both put a human face on a terrible tragedy, both political and personal. A slight nod to the earlier version here.
Mandela (1996) is a convincing documentary about Nelson Mandela, the first president of the new South Africa, a man who spent nearly 30 years in prison. His crime was being a black man that wouldn’t quit trying to change a horrible system. This film portrays a true triumph of the human spirit. 
In Bopha (1993) Danny Glover is a township policeman and Alfre Woodard is his wife. Their son is a militant in rebellion against the system and his parents. The conflicted couple perfectly exemplifies the plight of moderate blacks under apartheid.
Denzel Washington is excellent (as always) as activist Steve Biko in Cry, Freedom (1987). Kevin Kline is a sympathetic newspaperman in this tragic but hopeful biopic about one of the martyrs of the anti-apartheid movement. 
In A Dry White Season (1989), schoolteacher Donald Sutherland slowly comes to realize the ramifications of apartheid. His naivete perhaps mirrors that of the rest of the world; eventually he becomes  as horrified as we are. Marlon Brando has a nice turn as an outspoken lawyer.
Invictus (2009) is a terrific uplifting film directed by Clint Eastwood. Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman, of course) now president of apartheid-free South Africa hopes to unite his splintered country by convincing the black majority to support the all white South African rugby team, the Springboks. Matt Damon convincingly plays the team captain. When the team visits the prison where Mr. Mandela served nearly 30 years of his life it is a sobering thing for them and us. And, I picked up the rugby rules pretty quickly so don’t let the unusual sport stop you. 
These are also worth a look:  The Wilby Conspiracy (1975), which is a South African variation on The Defiant Ones; Sarafina! (1992), which is (of all things) a violent musical (!); and A World Apart (1988) with an impressive Jodhi May as a young girl personally impacted by her mother’s political radicalism.  
All of the films in this article are available on video. All except the first Cry the Beloved Country are available on DVD. All are for grown-up tastes.


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