TRUE STORY WEEK : CRY FREEDOM

Violence, as we have just said is a terrible thing. And even though we all know this, we cannot seem to be able to find a way to live together without murdering each other on this big planet of ours… Human beings are, of course, complicated, and that makes coexistence all the more difficult… This is even worse when history and prejudice “complicates” things so to speak. On the other hand, of course, we have the people who are ready to stand up and do something for change… People like Stephen Biko. He had set himself a tough task and was quite willing to succeed or die trying. Although Biko ended up dying trying, it is some comfort in knowing that his cause at least, succeeded. He was a black political activist rebelling against the Apartheid Regime in South Africa…
In the middle of the 70’s, Biko (played in the film by a young and very dashing Denzel Washington) was an important political activist in South Africa. His name was widely associated with change. His message was not one of “black supremacy” against the white supremacists but one of equality and humanity. He called on the people of South Africa to be proud of who they were, their culture and their heritage. He tried to break the mindsets setting the whites as “master” and the blacks as “servants” on both sides of the divide. As you can imagine, the Apartheid regime did NOT approve of this point of view at all. Biko had his work cut out because the prejudices ran deep and the opponents weren’t afraid to play dirty. Well meaning white liberals like Donald Wells (Kevin Kline) did NOT help the cause. Wells, the chief editor of a newspaper in Johannesburg is white and liberal. And as far as he is concerned, Biko is just pushing black supremacy; advocating the same regime as the Apartheid, just “switching the colors round”. After a particularly critical article, one of Biko’s close friends bursts into his office. If Wells must write about Biko he must at least get his story right. Thus Wells is introduced to Stephen Biko. The headstrong young activist impresses Wells and gains his respect and in time the two men become fast friends. Wells is now much better informed on the true horrors of the Apartheid… And the horror of it actually hits home when his good friend Stephen is finally “disposed of” by the regime. Donald feels he must share what he has learnt with the world – but in such a regime; this is easier said than done…
So, first of all, make no mistake the film is one of excellent quality. Richard Attenborough holds the helm; Kline and Washington give us a brilliant show of their considerable talents… All this however, does by no means take away from the fact that this is a “film with a message”. The screenplay was adapted by two books Wells wrote on Biko and his time in South Africa, so there is a lot of dialogue put there mainly to express Stephen Biko’s ideas… It started out bothering me a tiny bit, but the whole film is far from being just “ideological”. No, there are clear demonstrations of life under Apartheid rule. As the film progresses – and it progresses quite a bit at a grand 2 hours and 31 minutes – the mood change from politics to adventure… After seeing the theory, we move on to the practice so to speak; and we sweat as Wells does as he tries to outwit the regime to get out of the country and get his voice heard. Hand on heart, it’s no easy task making a film “with a message” and making it exciting at the same time. Attenborough has, basically, succeeded. I mean, as you can probably tell, I possibly wouldn’t have put all the “message” bit in one clump at the beginning (to put it in basic terms!) but then again maybe this is the best way to get a balanced view of the story… Well, I can tell you that both the ideas and the story are most definitely well worth listening to.