Movie Reviews for Cry Freedom

Cry Freedom

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Movie Reviews of Cry Freedom

Movie Review: Inspirational and Illustrative
Summary: 4 Stars

One biggest complaint about the movie is that it fools you at first into thinking it will address an evolving relationship between Donald Woods and Steve Biko. But when Steve dies suddenly you realize abruptly that that plot line is over!

I find the movie inspirational because it illustrates so well the power of right ideas, and the trust placed in those who understand to the core the implications of these ideas.

But most of all what I enjoy about this movie is the core theme of what happens when governments attempt to steal from people those God-given rights we all share. For like all other animals on this planet, who have the rights to be and to exist as they were created, so do we humans have the right from birth and till death to be as humans are to be, whatever the form and without coercion from a master force, within a properly limited government. As Steve says in one scene, "We [South African blacks] don't want to be forced into your [South African whites] society. I'm going to be me as I am and you can beat me or jail me, or even kill me. But I am not going to be what you want me to be." As another of Steve's friends says in the same scene, "The best you want for us is to be allowed to sit at your table, using your silver and your china, and if we can learn to use it like you do, then you will kindly let us stay." "...but it's an African table. And we will learn to sit at it in our own right." The essence of the human spirit.

Cry Freedom illustrates what happens (and will always eventually happen) when government attempts to remove that which it has no power or right to. Apartheid was the codification of this attempt in South Africa. (As an aside, in the name of government "unions" taking shape all over the world in various forms, unfortunately we see first-hand power being abstracted farther from the people and closer to the hands of the few, making it a simple matter for some distant powerful body to trample the rights of the many for the comfort of the few.)

Please watch this movie.

Movie Review: The future is absent
Summary: 4 Stars

A long film about a very important character from South Africa, Stephen Biko. He is one of these Blacks who did not survive apartheid, who actually died a long time before their normal time. The already old film though does not show how important Biko was, what he really represented. His life and his teaching is reduced to little, at best a few witty remarks. The film being from 1987, the objective was to push South Africa over the brink that would lead her to liberation. So the film aims at showing how irrational the South African supporters of apartheid are, in 1987. To show this the film has to look beyond Biko's death, hence to center its discourse not on Biko but on a white liberal journalist and his escaping the absurd system in which he is living. His escape is made necessary because of the victimization he is the victim of, along with his family, and because he wants to publish the first book on Biko, after his death, and that can only happen in England. The film shows a way to escape South Africa, while apartheid is still standing and killing. So do not expect this way to be realistic and true. It could not be. But the film has tremendously aged because it does not show South Africa with any historical distantiation, the very distantiation that has taken place under Nelson Mandela's presidency and that is called forgiveness provided those who want to be forgiven speak up and out. The film is strong and emotional but that very historical limit makes it rather weak today, especially since the film does not mention the third racial community, the Indians. Panegyric books or films all have that defect: they are looking at the person they are supposed to portrait from only one point of view. That explains why the film has aged so much, seems to be coming from so long ago, as if nothing had changed at all. A remake is necessary.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID

Movie Review: It looks like South Africa
Summary: 4 Stars

I suspect the details of the escape from South Africa were over-dramatized at some points. But my main point is simply this: having lived in South Africa for two years, I can confirm that the movie transmits a perfect impression of what the country feels and looks like. I don't mean the political situation under apartheid; I mean the streets, roads, landscapes, and how people interact with each other - a good example is the jokes between the delivery man from Lesotho and the South African border guards. The film was mostly shot in Zimbabwe, to maximum effect.