Posted: 03/18/2005

In My Country

(2005)

by William Furlong

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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