A Dry White Season

Ben du Toit is a teacher in Johannesburg. He has a comfortable life and politics does not concern him. The son of his gardener Gordon joins a demonstration and is arrested. The boy dies in custody. According to the report he hanged himself. Gordon does not believe it and starts asking. Some time later Gordon is taken in as well, and he dies too. Ben begins to ask questions. Every question closes a door; the school does not want him, his wife objects, his daughter informs on him. He finds a lawyer and they go to court. Euzhan Palcy directs. Donald Sutherland plays Ben, Marlon Brando the lawyer, Winston Ntshona plays Gordon and Zakes Mokae plays Stanley; Janet Suzman and Jürgen Prochnow are in the cast. It is an American production. The source is André Brink's novel. Palcy became the first black woman to direct a film for a major Hollywood studio. Marlon Brando had not made a film for years and came back for the part; he worked for minimum scale and was nominated for an Oscar. Its ground is the 1976 Soweto uprising and the deaths in custody that followed. The narrative does not make a hero of its white character; Ben wakes late and what he does saves nobody. The film was banned in South Africa for a long time. The courtroom scene is at its centre and shows how the law was kept from working. Its limit is its outlook; the narrative gives the event through a white character's eyes and that choice was argued over. Who it is for: viewers who like narratives of the apartheid years and political drama. Who it is not for: it is hard, bleak, and the ending bitter.