It was a Sunday evening and Ranga and me were busy with a myriad tasks which need to be completed before a fresh week begins. Laundry taken in, ironed, cooking done...we sat down to watch Lion King 2, a beautiful movie and one which whetted our appetite for more...had dinner and then checked all channels..and stopped at "A Dry White Season" - vaguely remembered seeing a book by this name somewhere and when I saw the actors as Donald Sutherland, Marlon Brando and Susan Sarandon..well decision made, we would watch it...after a sweet movie like the Lion King, this one came as a sickening blow to the gut!
Set in 1976 when apartheid was rampant in S.Africa, it is a tale which hurts your sensibilities, makes you wonder at the greed of mankind and utter callous attitude of one man toward another. It is a thinking man's film and not for those who want to leave reality behind.
Anyways the story is thus - an African gardener working for a white Afrikaans household approaches Donald Sutherland, a teacher with news that his son has been beaten by the police as he was in the area where there was a protest going on against British govt and police brutality. He seeks help. Donald, a man born and brought up ib S.Africa is a naive man who thinks everything is in order and has faith in the fairness of the British and since it's a minor issue advises him to drop it saying "There is nothing to be done". The 10 year old boy rushes to his elder brother who seethes in silent fury and refuses to abandon participating in an all students protest to take part shortly. He is captured during the protest, tortured and killed and body disposed off in a mass grave. The gardener again seeks Donald's help to get his son's body back and Donald agrees to help, he tries reaching out to his friends and others and realizes how quickly he is ostracized by his own community and he is soon all alone. Having hit a brick wall, the gardener decides to go it alone, well, as can be expected, he is also arrested, brutally tortured and killed but is colored as a suicide. Now his wife takes up the cudgels demanding justice and appalled at the way things are and how stupidly blind he has been to society around him Donald is now a man on a crusade.
He hires Marlon Brando an attorney to file a case against the police captain, and despite an impassioned appeal by Brando, a couple of witnesses of the defense turning witnesses for the prosecution and evidence of police brutality clear, the kangaroo court and the biased judge rule in favor of the police. Emily, the gardener's wife is next targeted by the police, her children thrown back to Zulu land and she herself brutally bludgeoned to death while trying to save her children.
Now, really inflamed, Donald makes it his mission to fight the system and takes with him a black ANC crusader as his partner and sets about methodically collecting affidavits from people who have suffered the brutality of the British police. He loses his job and his son is beaten up by other schoolmates and rusticated for his troubles. His wife and teenage daughter go so far as to claim that he is an Afrikaner traitor. His 13 year old son is his staunch ally as the gardener's son was his friend and he is proud that his papa has decided to fight back.
His daughter gets a hunch he has concealed something in the garage and informs the police captain who trashes the place and sets fire to it. It is a sad day in his life when he realizes that the love of his life, his own dear daughter has chosen to betray him..haven't we seen and heard about this in Nazi Germany, in erstwhile USSR, in erstwhile East Germany? ...family members turning against each other is not knew but inherently devastating. He with the help of journalist Susan Sarandon and his black comrade in arms and his son sets a trap, hands over all documents to the black man asks him to give it Susan to get out of the country to publish it in international newspapers to get word out of S.Africa of the crimes going on..and gives a fake set to his daughter for safe keeping. As he suspects, she hands it over to the police captain, who when he realizes he has been made a fool of, waits in a car and runs Donald over. Susan is deported for seditious activities. The black comrade in anger and grief shoots the police captain. Rang-a rng-of roses, Pocket full of posies, all fall down!! All dead and the regime moved on for so many years before Mandela and the ANC could wrest it away..another country suffered untold brutality for the greed of a small island nation which posed as an Imperial power and got away with it for hundreds of years...so many issues, so many lessons..yet nothing has changed, even today man fights man, greed for Money being the only reason and the heady feeling of power of man over man...sad, really sad!
A must watch movie or if you can get your hands on the book, read it. Another book on the subject also worth reading is "Color of Freedom"....
Set in 1976 when apartheid was rampant in S.Africa, it is a tale which hurts your sensibilities, makes you wonder at the greed of mankind and utter callous attitude of one man toward another. It is a thinking man's film and not for those who want to leave reality behind.
Anyways the story is thus - an African gardener working for a white Afrikaans household approaches Donald Sutherland, a teacher with news that his son has been beaten by the police as he was in the area where there was a protest going on against British govt and police brutality. He seeks help. Donald, a man born and brought up ib S.Africa is a naive man who thinks everything is in order and has faith in the fairness of the British and since it's a minor issue advises him to drop it saying "There is nothing to be done". The 10 year old boy rushes to his elder brother who seethes in silent fury and refuses to abandon participating in an all students protest to take part shortly. He is captured during the protest, tortured and killed and body disposed off in a mass grave. The gardener again seeks Donald's help to get his son's body back and Donald agrees to help, he tries reaching out to his friends and others and realizes how quickly he is ostracized by his own community and he is soon all alone. Having hit a brick wall, the gardener decides to go it alone, well, as can be expected, he is also arrested, brutally tortured and killed but is colored as a suicide. Now his wife takes up the cudgels demanding justice and appalled at the way things are and how stupidly blind he has been to society around him Donald is now a man on a crusade.
He hires Marlon Brando an attorney to file a case against the police captain, and despite an impassioned appeal by Brando, a couple of witnesses of the defense turning witnesses for the prosecution and evidence of police brutality clear, the kangaroo court and the biased judge rule in favor of the police. Emily, the gardener's wife is next targeted by the police, her children thrown back to Zulu land and she herself brutally bludgeoned to death while trying to save her children.
Now, really inflamed, Donald makes it his mission to fight the system and takes with him a black ANC crusader as his partner and sets about methodically collecting affidavits from people who have suffered the brutality of the British police. He loses his job and his son is beaten up by other schoolmates and rusticated for his troubles. His wife and teenage daughter go so far as to claim that he is an Afrikaner traitor. His 13 year old son is his staunch ally as the gardener's son was his friend and he is proud that his papa has decided to fight back.
His daughter gets a hunch he has concealed something in the garage and informs the police captain who trashes the place and sets fire to it. It is a sad day in his life when he realizes that the love of his life, his own dear daughter has chosen to betray him..haven't we seen and heard about this in Nazi Germany, in erstwhile USSR, in erstwhile East Germany? ...family members turning against each other is not knew but inherently devastating. He with the help of journalist Susan Sarandon and his black comrade in arms and his son sets a trap, hands over all documents to the black man asks him to give it Susan to get out of the country to publish it in international newspapers to get word out of S.Africa of the crimes going on..and gives a fake set to his daughter for safe keeping. As he suspects, she hands it over to the police captain, who when he realizes he has been made a fool of, waits in a car and runs Donald over. Susan is deported for seditious activities. The black comrade in anger and grief shoots the police captain. Rang-a rng-of roses, Pocket full of posies, all fall down!! All dead and the regime moved on for so many years before Mandela and the ANC could wrest it away..another country suffered untold brutality for the greed of a small island nation which posed as an Imperial power and got away with it for hundreds of years...so many issues, so many lessons..yet nothing has changed, even today man fights man, greed for Money being the only reason and the heady feeling of power of man over man...sad, really sad!
A must watch movie or if you can get your hands on the book, read it. Another book on the subject also worth reading is "Color of Freedom"....
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