History can be cruel to certain films by making them almost immediately irrelevant. Yet this irrelevance can be a good thing for the world, making it at least slightly better place. One of the films to suffer such fate was A Dry White Season, 1989 drama directed by Euzhan Palcy, the very last film depicting South Africa while white minority rule and apartheid regime were still going on.
The film is based on the eponymous 1979 novel by André Brink, Afrikaner writer who, unlike most of his fellow Afrikaners, turned against apartheid and had to go to exile for his trouble. The plot begins in 1976 Johannesburg where protagonist, Afrikaner history teacher Ben Du Toit (played by Donald Sutherland), lives comfortably like a member of middle class, mostly unaware of the plight of majority black population, which includes his loyal gardener Gordon Ngubene (played by Winston Ntshona). When Gordon’s young son gets beaten by police, and later arrested following bloody suppression of Soweto Uprising, Ben is at first reluctant to get involved. This changes when Gordon finds that his son died of injuries received during custody only to himself get arrested and suffer the same fate, his death officially being ruled suicide. Ben is infuriated and decides to seek justice for his gardener with the help of mysterious black activist Stanley Makhaya (played by Zakes Mokae) and human rights attorney Ian McKenzie (played by Marlon Brando), who warns him that his crusade would be fruitless. The court inquest clears South African security services of all wrongdoings, but Ben is determined to continue gathering evidence about beatings, torture and murders. As a result, Ben is being increasingly shunned as “kaffir lover” and traitor not only by his Afrikaner friends, colleagues but also by members of his own family. He loses job and experiences campaign of threats, vandalism and intimidation by security services led by Captain Stoltz (played by Jürgen Prochnow).
A Dry White Season was very passionate project for Euzhan Palcy, French Martinique-born director who even travelled undercover to Soweto in order to get material for the most accurate depiction of life in black township under apartheid regime. Result of her effort is a film that unapologetically wears the author’s beliefs on its sleeve and condemns white South African government as monstrosity that murders and tortures innocent children. This passion attracted Marlon Brando to end his near decade-long retirement from acting and add prestige to the project. His presence is, however, both film’s asset and liability; while his small role is brilliantly played and powerful, episode featuring well-intentioned but world-weary lawyer is simply too short to have proper impact and Brando in the end makes the rest of the cast look bad in comparison. Donald Sutherland is good but he can’t do much with the script that fails to properly explain his transformation from conformist into idealist crusader. Winston Ntshona is much better as grieving father, but appears too little to have proper impact; same goes for Janet Suzman as Ben’s wife who refuses to rock the boat for practical reasons. Jürgen Prochnow is wasted in the role of sadistic and menacing villain.
Although it represents a work of fiction, A Dry White Season is in some ways uncomfortably similar to real life story depicted in Richard Attenborrough’s Cry Freedom. Both films couldn’t have been made in South Africa and were made in neighbouring Zimbabwe instead, with many exiled anti-apartheid activists being part of the cast. Both films were, especially in later years, attacked for depicting cruelty of apartheid from perspective of well-intentioned whites instead of providing authentic black experience. There is, however, one major difference between two films. While Attenborrough in Cry Freedom tried to end on positive note, promoting peace, understanding and overcoming prejudice, Palcy provides much more depressive and violent finale that even suggests that the story of a brutal and violent South African regime can have only brutal and violent ending. Only few months later Nelson Mandela was released from captivity marking the symbollic end of oppression and beginning one of the most celebrated peaceful transition towards democracy and multi-racial society in history. All those who watch this film now would probably consider A Dry White Season less powerful than in time of its production, but probably happy that its creators were, at least when South Africa was concerned, wrong.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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