Forgiveness

Inspired by the case of Dirk Coetzee and Sizwe Kondile — the former was part of the South African Police Department's notorious Security Branch and the latter an apartheid-era activist whom they murdered by staging his death to look like a common crime — Ian Gabriel's slow, gloomy drama about punishment, absolution and forgiveness unfolds in the aftermath of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. Former police officer Tertius Coetzee (Arnold Vosloo) was granted absolution by the Commission, but is still tormented by the death of Daniel Grootboom, a college-age freedom fighter whom he personally murdered in custody. He and his men then staged Dan...