I saw the film Saturday, knowing that it wouldn't be up for long, and was somewhat left with a feeling of satisfaction of such a film even being distributed in the U.S. and the courage of the films creator's, but with a sense of obvious revisionism.
The film is about South Africa during the brutal years of Apartheid (violent segregation), opening with a grim reminder of the seriousness of the issue, we see a montage of old BBC clips and a commentator giving us a brief overview of the situation, we see images of Blacks being shot, beat, and a world of oppression. We then meet the cast. The film pays a great amount of time on Patrick Chamusso's family life, some may say this is to make the characters more human and the story more engaging, but it seemed to me that it should have dealt more with Apartheid. It felt much too long before anything really begins.
I'll avoid boring people with yet another narration of the plot, but Patrick is imprisoned and tortured, when his own wife is put through the very same he becomes enraged, and upon his release he seeks revenge and see's the necessity of overthrowing the government. Throughout the film, only slight remarks are ever uttered about the conflict, and the terrorist actions in the beginning really only begin to matter around the end portion of the film. This is the most troublesome part of the whole film to me, the ANC, the war in Angola, the war in Mozambique, the Cold War, the situation in Africa as a whole is almost ignored (we only see a hammer and sickle once in the entire film for god sakes, yet Marxist movements dominated social life there for decades). The story of Patrick Chamusso, is overly simplified to depict a revenge story and nothing more, nothing about the ideals he fought for. Never is the intentions of the African National Congress portrayed, the guerrilla war in the North and the overall fervor is omitted. With a story that although succeeds as a humanitarian story it fails to really show the terror, the movements, and In the end we are left with a simplified Africa.
I give it a 7 out of ten.
The film is about South Africa during the brutal years of Apartheid (violent segregation), opening with a grim reminder of the seriousness of the issue, we see a montage of old BBC clips and a commentator giving us a brief overview of the situation, we see images of Blacks being shot, beat, and a world of oppression. We then meet the cast. The film pays a great amount of time on Patrick Chamusso's family life, some may say this is to make the characters more human and the story more engaging, but it seemed to me that it should have dealt more with Apartheid. It felt much too long before anything really begins.
I'll avoid boring people with yet another narration of the plot, but Patrick is imprisoned and tortured, when his own wife is put through the very same he becomes enraged, and upon his release he seeks revenge and see's the necessity of overthrowing the government. Throughout the film, only slight remarks are ever uttered about the conflict, and the terrorist actions in the beginning really only begin to matter around the end portion of the film. This is the most troublesome part of the whole film to me, the ANC, the war in Angola, the war in Mozambique, the Cold War, the situation in Africa as a whole is almost ignored (we only see a hammer and sickle once in the entire film for god sakes, yet Marxist movements dominated social life there for decades). The story of Patrick Chamusso, is overly simplified to depict a revenge story and nothing more, nothing about the ideals he fought for. Never is the intentions of the African National Congress portrayed, the guerrilla war in the North and the overall fervor is omitted. With a story that although succeeds as a humanitarian story it fails to really show the terror, the movements, and In the end we are left with a simplified Africa.
I give it a 7 out of ten.