Spending time with my aunt K, my recent visit to my great uncle and great aunt in Florida, and being at my mom's house this summer I have seen a lot of stuff from South Africa-- wooden carvings, paintings my grandmother did (above), photos (like the one above of my grandparents on their wedding day, on the steps of the synagogue in Johannesburg-- yes, that is my grandmother's sister and my grandfather's brother on either side of them, the same great aunt and great uncle I just visited all these years later in Florida).
It has kindled (re-kindled?) in me an interest in South Africa. (It's not like I am completely ignorant about the country having grown up hearing about it and then having a close friend in college who spent a semester there and worked on learning the click languages, even producing a CD of South African music she conducted on a post-college trip-- the very talented Molecule--hi Molecule!).
To this end, I have been made an effort to choose movies set in South Africa while I was at my aunt's. First I watched "Yesterday," which was quite moving. My aunt says the scenery is very realistic, that is how she remembers South Africa looking.
Next my aunt and I watched "The Color Of Freedom." This is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time, though oddly it has not gotten a lot of acclaim (it received a Peace Film Award and was nominated for a Golden Berlin Bear). Perhaps this is because although it claims to be the true story of Mandela's prison guard (based on the book Goodbye, Bafana written by James Gregory), the guard's story has never been corroborated by Mandela himself. Regardless of whether the film accurately portrays the relationship between Gregory and Mandela, it is a good historical piece and gave me a condensed history lesson.
My aunt kept exclaiming that growing up in South Africa she didn't see the brutality that the film portrayed. Perhaps because my family left in 1968, and my aunt was only 10 when they left the country... It's hard to believe that the treatment of the black South Africans did not affect everyone viscerally, whether or not they supported apartheid. I certainly have the utmost respect for my grandparents for having the courage to emigrate for the second time in their young lives in order to remove their family from a country whose politics they did not support.
My aunt did show me photos of when she returned to South Africa at age twenty, in 1978. That trip she did witness a very disturbing incident where she saw police arresting black people without the proper paperwork at a train station. She said she felt her blood chill. She says she was afraid to intervene or become more politically active while she was in South Africa is that she was told by the authorities that because she was born in Joburg, the United States would have limited powers to intervene if she got imprisoned even though she was a US citizen (whether or not this was true she was never able to find out).
At any rate, I intend to continue to try to watch more movies set in South Africa and maybe even read some books set there (certainly after watching "The Color of Freedom" I am curious to read Goodbye, Bafana). I bought a used copy of the movie "Beat The Drum" to watch while I am waiting for my flight from Seattle to San Jose tomorrow morning (long story but I have another four hour wait...). I've already read Cry, The Beloved Country and seen "The Power of One" (which made a big impression on me), but if anyone wants to recommend any other movies or books that take place in South Africa, by all means send me an email or post below. Thanks.
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