Movie Night: A DRY WHITE SEASON
Some thoughts about A DRY WHITE SEASON, a Grishamesque legal thriller with a powerful conscience. Spoilers ahead:
* This movie came out in the late 1980s, as the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa neared its climax. The opening credits show a white child and a Black child playing together, joyfully. Before 15 minutes have passed, the Black child will be dead. This is not a movie that shies away from that violence -- the camera lingers on the faces of dead children, massacred for the crime of protesting. This is not a movie that will let you feel comfortable. Not even at the end.
* The protagonist is played by Donald Sutherland - we'll talk more about that in a bit - a schoolteacher who comes to realize his own complicity in apartheid, the death, cruelties and injustice inflicted in its name that he has let himself ignore for the sake of living a comfortable life. "They must have had a reason," he says when his gardener's son is arrested. The costs of coming to terms with the that reality is not greeted warmly -- the authorities, his coworkers and even his wife and daughter variously warn and rage against his effort to seek justice. Being true to the cause of truth, this movie suggests, can cost you everything. Everything.
* One passage was startling to me in the echoes I hear in the current backlash against Black Lives Matter.
* This movie came out in the late 1980s, as the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa neared its climax. The opening credits show a white child and a Black child playing together, joyfully. Before 15 minutes have passed, the Black child will be dead. This is not a movie that shies away from that violence -- the camera lingers on the faces of dead children, massacred for the crime of protesting. This is not a movie that will let you feel comfortable. Not even at the end.
* The protagonist is played by Donald Sutherland - we'll talk more about that in a bit - a schoolteacher who comes to realize his own complicity in apartheid, the death, cruelties and injustice inflicted in its name that he has let himself ignore for the sake of living a comfortable life. "They must have had a reason," he says when his gardener's son is arrested. The costs of coming to terms with the that reality is not greeted warmly -- the authorities, his coworkers and even his wife and daughter variously warn and rage against his effort to seek justice. Being true to the cause of truth, this movie suggests, can cost you everything. Everything.
* One passage was startling to me in the echoes I hear in the current backlash against Black Lives Matter.
Ben du Toit: Jesus, Susan, this is not just about Gordon! This is about all of us!"You have to choose your own people," Susan concludes, "or you have no people."
Susan du Toit: No. It's about all of *them*. And I will be damned if I let them destroy my family. I don't want Gordon's ghost in my house! I don't want the one with the dark glasses, any of these kaffirs here ever again! I just want to go back to the way it was!
Ben du Toit: If you had come with me... if you had seen what was happening in that court, you would know that we can never go back to the way it was.
Susan du Toit: I *was* in the court.
Ben du Toit: What?
Susan du Toit: Listen to me, Ben. I heard what the police did, and I'm not saying it was right. But you think the blacks wouldn't do the same thing to us, and worse, if they had half the chance? Do you think they'll let us go on living our nice, quiet, peaceful lives if they win? They'll swallow us up! It's our country, Ben, we made every inch of it! Look at the rest of Africa, it's a mess... It's like in war. You have to choose sides. You are not one of them and they don't want you to be!
"You have to choose truth," Ben responds.
Preach it, Ben.
* Given that Donald Sutherland is the protagonist and the marquee names -- Marlon Brando (who received an Oscar nomination for his performance), Jurgen Prochnow, Susan Surandon, Michael Gambon -- it would be easy to pass over this movie as a white savior flick. But it's important to note that this was the first Hollywood movie directed by a black woman, Euzhan Palcy, and the story of how she shepherded this movie into being -- and why she disappeared from Hollywood to France -- is fascinating.
* You can find this movie on Criterion Channel until the end of the month.
* You can find this movie on Criterion Channel until the end of the month.
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