Jonathan Paul Loomis

October 18, 1998

The African Writer

Dr. Debo

There were some technical difficulties involved with this film and my understanding of its finer points. First of all, the Smithsonian failed to obtain the English-subtitles version and so all the African language segments of the film were instead subtitled in French. This would not have been a problem, accept that I do not read French, and so was able to understand a very limited amount of the dialogue. The second problem was with the projector, which exploded and melted the film about half way through the feature. This however was only minor.

Having covered those problems let me expound upon what I thought of the film. It was good, first of all. The program notes indicated that it was the first film written, directed, and stared in by blacks in South Africa in the post-apartheid era. The basic story is set in the late Apartheid era and revolves around a schoolteacher who seems to have the tragic flaw of desiring sex. He is so obsessed with this that he rapes one of his students. To compound problems, his coming of age son has just returned from school in Swaziland and wants him to promote the end of Apartheid in his classroom. Furthermore, his wife kicks him out of the house because of the rape. He has to deal with this desire, prompted by his son, to teach revolution in his class, and his extreme desire to be loved.

Once his wife throws him out he has no one to turn to. His son scorns him for conforming to the demands of the whites. His wife hates him for his crime. His principal believes he's incompetent, and in the end he settles upon becoming one of the many old "wise men" who roam around Soweto and represent the true freedom of the black mind and spirit. After some contemplation, I found the hero to be representative of the black conscience during the Apartheid years. He is trapped by many forces: the white rule and police, blacks who have conformed to the white power and support it, blacks who demand freedom, and traditional African social customs. It's really too bad it wasn't in English.

Go back to My Recent Works Page

Go Home