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A Dry White Season

1989, Movie, R, 97 mins

A Dry White Season: Review

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A polemic against South African apartheid, this may not meet criteria for "great" filmmaking, but director Euzhan Palcy's film succeeds in being significant. History teacher Ben du Toit (Donald Sutherland), an Afrikaner, lives a comfortable middle-class existence with wife Susan (Janet Suzman) and their children in Johannesburg in the 1970s. He finds all of his personal and political ties thrown into question, however, following the event that sparked the Soweto uprising of 1976, when a peaceful protest march by black schoolchildren demanding better education was put down in a bloody massacre. When his longtime gardener (Winston Ntshona), in the process of trying to recover his son's body, is himself arrested, then brutally tortured and murdered, du Toit's liberal consciousness is raised. A DRY WHITE SEASON is worth watching for the (sometimes painful) force of its truths and its perspective, which shows the effects of racism from both white and black standpoints. This is the first full-length feature to be directed by a black woman for a major US studio. Adding to this already significant achievement, Palcy, in what amounts to the casting coup of the year, enlisted the reclusive Brando to make his brief but memorable cameo appearance--his first film role since 1980--for union scale. His performance alone is worth the price of admission to this earnest, somewhat predictable, but moving and significant film. Brando's cameo earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. leave a comment
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