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Forgiveness

2004, Movie, NR, 96 mins

Forgiveness: Review

FORGIVENESS
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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 Daniel's death to look like a fatal carjacking. Having testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and been granted absolution, Coetzee travels to coastal Paternoster, the fishing village where Daniel's family lives, to ask their forgiveness. The Grootbooms are still shattered: Father Hendrik (Zane Maes), a fisherman, blames himself for sending Daniel to university; if he had stayed at home none of this would have happened. His wife, Magda (Denise Newman), has retreated so far into her grief that she never leaves the house. Their children, Sannie (Quanita Adams) and Ernest (Christo Davids) — who grew up in the shadow of their "perfect" older brother — are just angry. Where Hendrik and Magda are coldly polite, Sannie and Ernest lash out furiously. Realizing that he's asking too much from the broken family, Coetzee returns to his hotel to pack. Sannie, meanwhile, calls Daniel's friend Llewellyn (Elton Landrew), who tells her to keep Coetzee in town, and rounds up Zuko (Hugh Masebensa) and Luke (Lionel Newton), fellow comrades in arms thirsting for revenge. As the would-be assassins slowly make their way to remote Paternoster, Sannie is forced to invent reasons for Coetzee to spend time with her parents and brother, with the result that some genuine reconciliation begins to take place, and she finds herself trapped in an increasingly untenable moral position. Gabriel and screenwriter Greg Latter tackle a thorny subject and do justice to its complexities for much of the film's running time, only succumbing to cliches of healing and closure at the end. They also offer South African actor Vosloo, who's spent most of his career playing glowering action-movie heavies, a rare opportunity to explore a more complex role, and he rises to the occasion. (In English and subtitled in Afrikaans) leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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