Sarafina [VHS]

A film from the perspective of a South African girl during one of the worst periods of the Apartheid era. This film has it all--an incredible musical score, superb acting, and sensitive viewpoints. Completely wrenching, yet upbeat. The first time I saw it was at a theatre in Johannesburg, SA, and I thought I'd never see it again, as it is hard to come by on video. But I got it, and 10 years later it still moves me to tears. A must-see, and some good history in there as well. Definitely on my top 5 films of all time, and probably number 1.

Being Scottish, this film is difficult to find. My "adopted" daughter brought this film from Swaziland for me too see. If you don't understand the horrors of the apartheid regime in South Africa, this film will tell you in no uncertain terms and leave you with absolutely no doubt of it's brutality and treatment of our black brothers and sisters. The beauty, the dance, the music are wondrous. Masakela's music is at times quite inspiring and the talent on display, remarkable. Sarafina is NOT a film about what white people did to black people, it is a film that shows fascism as it is, racist, divisive and totally evil. It will play with your emotions, it will inspire you, tear at your soul, reduce you to tears and elate you, but most importantly it will learn you the of the beauty and evils that lurk in the heart of mankind. AMANDLA!

I feel uncomfortable having to write a less than complimentary review of what in many ways is a very fine film, the more so knowing that giants of the struggle such as Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela contributed significantly to the film. But this must be said: the film fails utterly to capture the daily brutalities of the racist apartheid regime that for nearly 50 years effectively sought to reduce the native peoples of South Africa to nothing more than a slave class of fractured families, characteristically men to the mines, women to domestic service in white households. When the white interrogator refers to "my country" it would have been interesting to have flagged that the indigenous peoples of the country were denied even citizenship. In the South Africa Museum in Cape Town (now the Iziko Museum) the indigenous Khoisan were displayed alongside the baboons (and indeed were routinely rudely addressed as 'baboons'), obscene testimony to the fact that they were regarded as something less than human. This Afrikaner world view, essential in contextualising the action, was not clearly communicated in the film.

Perhaps as disturbing as anything else for me, since it eloquently mirrored much of the miscalculated mood of the film itself, was the blurb on the back of the DVD box: "Amazingly talented Academy Award-winning star Whoopi Goldberg ... lights up the screen in her latest hit--the exhilarating and entertaining Sarafina!" Yes, Whoopi Goldberg is a hugely talented actress, but why choose an American actress who cannot even muster a South African accent when there are so many equally talented black South African actresses who could have played the role? And why "her latest hit"? a "hit", for heaven's sake! and yes, indeed it was, but was that really the point of the film? another "hit" for a foreign actress? "Lights up the screen"? yes, in a way that is surreally far remote from the revolutionary seriousness and sufferings of the black South African teachers I know. What lit up the screen for me was rather the burning of the quisling Sabela. And "exhilarating and entertaining"? yes, sadly I'm afraid it truly was: it oozed with entertainment, obfuscating the brutalised lives to which, in reality, the children were condemned.

So why does all this matter? It matters because, in popular consciousness, the film enters the heterogeneous cannon of documents telling the story of one of the most appalling crimes in human history. Imagine, by way of comparison, an all-singing all-dancing musical on Auschwitz, a top hat and tails tap-dance through the events of 9/11, a jolly sing-along in Guantanamo, a Sabra and Chatila soft shoe shuffle. Is my point coming across? While I acknowledge that as initially (1988) a Broadway musical it may have brought awareness of the evils of apartheid to a New York audience, to deliver on celluloid what is in effect a sanitised African version of The Sound Of Music, just another "hit" for an American actress, is to betray those who suffered throughout the struggles. If you must watch this film, first go visit the Apartheid Museum and Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto to glean a bit of context.