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Boesman & Lena

2000, Movie, NR, 88 mins

Boesman & Lena: Review

BOESMAN & LENA
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Samuel Beckett meets Edward Albee on the bleak mud flats of Capetown, South Africa, in this impassioned adaptation of Athol Fugard's 1969 anti-Apartheid play, as vital today as it was 30 years ago. Soon after the white man's bulldozer levels their shack, and fire reduces most of their possessions to ashes, Boesman (Danny Glover) and his "woman" Lena (Angela Bassett) find themselves down by the muddy shores of the Swarkops estuary. It's not the first time they've been forced to move; they've been driven from their makeshift homes so many times, Lena is no longer entirely sure of her own past. All she knows is the miserable loneliness of the here and now, and that the happiness she once shared with Boesman has been replaced by constant bickering. Boesman claims not to care about the eviction, but brutal treatment has made him a brutal man — and Lena has the bruises to prove it. As they begin preparing their camp for the cold night ahead, an old, tattered stranger wanders past. Lena calls him over, despite the fact that Boesman wants him gone: The stranger is a kaffir, a dark-skinned Xhosa tribesman who doesn't speak English. Boesman treats him with the same kind of disdain he himself is shown by white men. Nearly ten years after Bassett electrified audiences with her portrayal of Tina Turner in WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT, she's finally been given another part worthy of her talents, and she makes the most of it. Fugard, best known for his 1982 play Master Harold... and the Boys (a star-making vehicle for Glover on the Broadway stage), was born in 1931 and came of age under Apartheid. His play burns with anger and disgust. Even though Apartheid is now part of South Africa's painful past, the toll taken on people like Boesman and Lena is its legacy. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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