In My Country (2005)
by Hank Yuloff
In My Country (2005)
by William Furlong
When Apartheid was ended in South Africa, the people accused of torture and murder were given an opportunity for amnesty if they were confronted by survivors, gave full, public disclosure, and could prove their actions were politically motivated. Over 21,000 people told their stories to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and over 1,200 hundred defendants appeared to ask for forgiveness. This is the setting for In My Country, a film which is able to boil down months of testimony to show a representative and most powerful cross section of personal loss experienced when the white minority held control of the black majority.
The story is told through the experiences of two people who covered the hearings for the media. Langston Whitfield (Samuel L. Jackson) was a journalist sent by the Washington Post. He is not only skeptical that the hearings will work, but carries all the baggage of growing up in an America that may not have authorized torture, but certainly kept the African American population on the lower rung of society. Anna Malan (Juliette Binoche), is an Afrikaans poet who is covering the hearings for radio. Though it is never explained why she is the right person for that job, we are shown that she was the perfect choice. As a white South African, she is torn by the accounts of barbaric behavior committed by her countrymen in her name.
As for filmmaking, I applaud director John Boorman (The Tailor of Panama, Beyond Rangoon) and South African born screenwriter Ann Peacock (A Lesson Before Dying) for their ability to take such a large amount of testimony and boil it down to such a powerful film. If I could share one scene in particular, a man who kills a husband and wife confronts a small boy who witnessed the entire act. The response to his request for forgiveness is deeply moving beyond almost anything I have seen when taken as an example of what had to happen to heal that country. The brilliance of Mandella for coming up with an idea to bury the past had never occurred to obviously to me.
Jackson (Changing Lanes, Pulp Fiction, Coach Carter) is perfect. I wish I could come up with other words to describe him in films, but there are none. Binoche (Chocolat, The English Patient), who does most of her work in French, would be in the same category if we saw her more. In My Country would not be the same without their moving performances.
In My Country is a movie you should see in the theater. I think it helps to experience the vastness of the photography, the incredible music, and the feeling of all the people when surrounded by an audience.
Hank Yuloff is our senior staff reviewer in Los Angeles.
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It's an odd thing to recommend exactly half of a movie, but here I am doing it. Since In My Country left me feeling like I was flipping back and forth between a PBS special (in a good way) and an original Lifetime production (in a bad way), I'm going to give it two reviews. Do you want the good news or the bad news?
The good news is that John Boorman has crafted an incredibly beautiful, brutal and moving film about the aftermath of Apartheid in South Africa. We follow the Truth and Reconciliation Commission from town to village and beyond as they practice their particular brand of justice - forgiveness and amnesty. To Western hearts and minds, this may not seem like justice at all. Indeed, Samuel Jackson acts as our proxy, in turns outraged and awed at the manner in which the commission and the very victims themselves seemingly let their tormentors go free. Jackson is Langston Whitfield, a reporter from the Washington Post. He arrives in South Africa with the same concepts of race, guilt, anger and injustice that all Americans have felt at one time or another, on one side or another. His initial seen-it-all-before attitude isn't so much changed by what he experiences as it is demolished. He ain't seen nothing yet.
The commission calls those who wish to tell their stories, to put faces with the atrocities committed during the dark years of Apartheid. More importantly, the perpetrators of these horrible acts are on hand to answer to their victims, or their victims' next of kin. If these men can explain themselves and prove that their actions were politically motivated, that they were just following orders, then they will be granted amnesty and set free. As one elderly man asks of two bullying policemen, "Tell me why you destroyed my fruit trees, so that I may forgive you".
Of course destroying trees was the very least of the crimes explored. A woman breaks down as her long missing husband is confirmed dead. Another elderly man is forced to travel by wheelbarrow ever since the electric shock torture he was subjected to destroyed his nervous system. A small boy, silent since he watched his parents gunned down in their own home, finds the gunman kneeling before him begging his forgiveness. These scenes, all based on testimonies from the committee's records, are somehow painful and healing all at once. As someone wildly ignorant of South Africa in general and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission specifically, I'd like to thank Mr. Boorman for my startling education. I could have watched an entire film of these stories, gut-wrenching though they are. As an eye-opening foray into the recent, wounded past of these people and their land, In My Country excels. A definite must see.
The bad news is that John Boorman intertwined these dark but shining moments of truth with a clunky, unnecessary love story. In My Country is based on the "Country of My Skull" by Antjie Krog; a wealthy, white poet and journalist born and raised in South Africa. In the film, Ms. Krog's name becomes Anna Malan, portrayed by Juliet Binoche. Working for the public radio station, Anna attends the commission hearings, reading her daily reports over the airwaves. Right away she clashes with Jackson's Langston Whitfield and for a while their completely diametric world-views offer a perfect dramatic structure in which to explore the heart of the film. Then they have the sex.
Samuel Jackson is a powerful actor in nearly every role he inhabits. I'm not so sure he belongs in front of a green screen holding a lightsaber, but I'm positive he doesn't belong anywhere near the puckered lips of Juliet Binoche. They not only have no chemistry, they're missing the math and English as well. Stiff and awkward with each other, it's almost as though the actors know they shouldn't be doing what they're doing. It was a huge misstep to shoehorn this kind of plot in and around the gravity of the rest of the film, even if it is Antjie Krog's true story. Had Anna and Langston never met, or simply remained friends, we'd be spared the insulting metaphor of infidelity as political hate crime.
It's a shame, because as individual characters they both work. We get to see Anna's childhood home, a large, fenced-off house in the country where her parents and brother still live. We get to watch Langston interview, then spar with the irredeemable Col. De Jager (Brandon Gleeson), one of the top "patriots" who ordered around all those men who were just following orders. Best of all we get to watch them attempt to deal with the reality of what occurred in South Africa, Anna's guilt-laden assurances that she didn't know what was happening until it was too late, Langston's fury at finding his articles buried on page eight of the Washington Post. These actors definitely have their best moments when they're apart, which isn't a trait you generally look for in a love story. As an improbable tale of love and hope set against the backdrop of a fractured land, In My Country fails miserably. Run; don't walk, in the opposite direction.
In the end, I'm glad I saw it.
Half of it, at least.
William Furlong is a writer living in Manhattan.
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