AMANDLA!
# stars based on 4 stars: 3 Reviewed by: Harvey Karten Artisan Entertainment Directed by: Lee Hirsch Cast: Abdullah Ibrahim, Duma Ka Ndlovu, Sibongile Khumalo, Vusi Mahlasela, Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, Thandi Modise, Sifiso Ntuli, Sibusiso Nxumalo, Dolly Rathebe, Lindiwe Zulu Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 10/29/02
If you're a baby boomer or beyond you'll recall these lyrics:
"Put down your books and pick up a gun, We're gonna have a whole lot of fun. And it's one, two, three, what are we fightin' for? Don't ask me 'cause I don't give a damn, Next stop is Vietnam. And it's five, six, seven, open up those pearly gates, There ain't no time to wonder why, we're all gonna die."
That's from just one of the many American protest songs given birth during the sixties and seventies, favored in concerts patronized mostly by young people who opposed the draft and had no use for LBJ's war. These songs, delivered by people like Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Tom Lehrer, Bob Dylan and the like were indirectly responsible for ending the war. How so? Huge crowds turned out regularly in protest marches, people who might not have taken the trouble to show up if they weren't promised a few hours of such music. The huge attendance at countless rallies made an impression on the war hawks. With an Iraq war presumably weeks or months away and with a large number of Americans opposed, where are the rallies? Somehow the concept of protest songs has died out in the U.S. but just as these lyrics helped end the war here, they gave impetus to freedom for the black people in South Africa who had been forced since 1948 by a policy of apartheid to move into government shanties and forbidden even to travel throughout their own country with the dreaded passbooks.
According to Lee Hirsch, who directs "Amandla!" (meaning "power"), the songs in South Africa were not something apart from the daily lives of black people but were sung regularly, even daily by the oppressed people as a way to keep up their morale. Since no one today save an unreconstructed segregationist can look back and say that apartheid was a just policy, we can pretty much agree that the hearts of the filmmakers are in the right place. More important, the movie works to bring the South African struggle for freedom to vivid life as we watch the aging civil rights leaders talk about their experience and, more important witness the lively dances of the people as they rally against the minority white government. You get the impression that while the vast majority of the folks are too poor to join a gym, they don't need one: they get quite a workout from belting out these melodies, often in four-part harmony, and shaking themselves up with fervor. The types of spirituals sung by slaves in the U.S. during the 19th Century have little in common with the exuberance of these citizens of Soweto and beyond.
Some of the songs are scary, at least to the whites, such as "Beware Verwoerd" (the black man is coming). "Meadlowlands" was a protest against the Verwoerd's government's forced relocation of blacks to the government shacks in that area. "Madam Please" is from the black servant who challenges her mistress to ask about the substandard conditions of the servant's family. Since blacks could not vote, song had to take the place of suffrage.
The story is nicely balance by archival film including shots of the notorious Sharpville massacre of 1970 in which some 60 unarmed blacks were gunned down by white police, most shot in the back. The film ends on an upbeat note as the people rally behind the man some call the Moses of South Africans, Nelson Mandela-who had been imprisoned for life but released after some twenty years as a result of intense pressure on the de Klerk government. Hirsch appears to poke fun of the whites remaining the country, Dutch settlers having a barbecue imitate the black singers and dancers in a pejorative way without having a clue to what the songs are about. As Seattle critic Tom Keogh states in his review, "You may find yourself rushing out to the world-music section of a CD store to buy an album or two by some of these artists."
Not Rated. 108 minutes. Copyright 2002 by Harvey Karten at Harveycritic@cs.com
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