Customer Reviews

Bopha!

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I normally do not like movie like this, I am more into teen flicks, comedys, etc. but we watched Bopha! in school and it has most of our class in tears by the end. We were studying Africa and yes we had heard all about what happened but nothing compares to seeing this movie. It made even the sort of heartless kids in my class feel strongly about the subject, it put our lives into perspective. I think that this is a very powerful and moving movie and that everyone should see it at least once. but dont take my word for it, im just a kid, see it urself

This film is like a documentary. It is the truth about a terribly viscious

period in South Africa. it ends with the cry 'Amandla' which means

'Courage' - there is a wonderful documentary called 'Amandla' which is

the next stage in the Apartheid history. Worth seeing! ( Dvd)

i really enjoyed this film.props to Aresenio Hall.Morgan Freeman does a great job behind the camera.Danny Glover gives a powerful performance.a must see film.

This film takes place in South Africa in 1980, in the midst of the Apartheid uprisings. It focuses on a particular African American family. Danny Glover plays the husband, a policeman, who is employed by the government. Unbeknownst to him, his teenage son starts to engage in anti-apartheid activities. It provides interesting and often disturbing insight into this time period, and how it affected the residents of South Africa.

Today apartheid is a broken system, but to end it blood flowed in the streets... The blacks have spent many centuries as the prey
to both eastern and western predatory practices. The Moslim
slave traders were there before the Christians.
That the Dutch heritage settlers with their Afrikaans sought to hold onto
a "special" place above those whose land it really was
seems to show why movies like this were necessary.
Son against father and death stalking the township streets
makes this a movie that has impact even after the fact.
Danny Glover acts very well in this movie.

I purchased this video prior to my trip to South Africa in order to learn more about the history of apartheid. The film focuses on the lives of a black policeman's family in contrast to the privileges of his white class bosses. It is a struggle between a father and son

You could say that it is the age old struggle between the older generation's acceptance of the status quo (the father)and accommodating their lives within the allowed social parameters and the idealism and impetus toward change of the younger generation (the son).

It also portrays a white middle class caught in a whirlwind of change, one it is not prepared to cope with. The prospect of not having a place to go outside South Africa is frighting, particularly to the women who have grown accustomed to a life of privilege. These scenes have been played in many former colonies where those of privilege feel abandoned by the mother country.

In the end, with the death of the father, the old generation cedes the way to the youth and their new ideas and demands for a free black Africa that no one can stop.

As a post script to the review, I toured Robbens Island, where Nelson Mandela and the other political prisoners where kept, and I spoke with a tour guide that had been imprisoned in the very same island with Mandela. He told me that his biggest regret is that the youth of today have no idea of their struggle or the interest in learning about it. Sounds familiar with the disinterest of our own youth in the American civil rights struggles.

I recommend the film as a historical aid.

Saludos, Rolando

THIS MOVIE IS ABOUT A MAN WHO WORKS FOR THE LAW ABUSING HIS OWN PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY WANT A CHANGE IN LAWS AND THIS COP ALONG WITH THE REST OF THE POLICE FORCE TOTALLY ABUSE THESE PEOPLE IN ALL WAYS ALONG WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE INNOCENT UNTIL THE DAY HIS OWN SON GET CAUGHT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE THEN HIS PROBLEMS BEGIN. DO NOT ORDER THIS MOVIE FROM MOVIEMARS I DID AND NEVER RECEIVED IT HAD TO GO TO ANOTHER VENDOR.

It's a wonder that the movie it self did not receive an Oscar nomination, but I'm not going to exspress my opinion why. Danny Glover's performance in this movie was awesome and probably his best. Truly a must see.

1980, South Africa. It is the time of the rebellion of all townships against Afrikaans and apartheid. The originality of this film is not to only look at the savage brutality of the South African whites but to look at the reality in a small township just before this rebellion and to explore the human and race relations existing there and how they are in the process of changing with a new generation of people arriving on the scene, though still in schools. It is in these schools that it will all start in the form of a refusal to speak Afrikaans and to answer any request, order or assignment given to them in Afrikaans. The film shows how the growing consciousness is crossing the family of the main black cop in the township, because law and order is in the hands of the South African Police whose officers are white but whose rank and file and even non-commissioned officers are black. It thus becomes the son against the father, but also the mother against the father, though the mother is the maid of the the main white officer of the police station and the husband is the main non-commissioned officer of the police station. But some people from the special branch arrive one day and the whole situation will explode, because they arrived, partly, because their first heroic act is the death of an older militant who hanged himself in his cell, with his hands tied up behind his back. But they also arrive on that day because their intelligence is telling them that the younger generation is listening to the militants that are not dead like Biko or in prison like Mandela or in exile like Mbeki. It shows how the local white head of the police station disagrees about these ruthless methods but he yields, though it is never clear whether it is because he wants to keep his job or because he lets himself be convinced about the necessity to bulldoze down this emerging movement. It also shows that the main black non-commissioned officer of the police station will finally resign and go back to his wife and his son, but it will be too late because a knife will be drawn and used before it can be prevented. And then the police reinforcements, this time mainly white, are arriving in the illegal funeral for the first batch of victims. Their is no end in such a policy : violence calls for resistance and violence which calls for more violence and it may last a long time before the powerful side yields and accept to share power and the majority side accepts a compromise that means sharing power and reconciliation. When we see such a film and remember these bloody years, we are justified to say that South Africa has come a long way and had gone, if not over the brink, at least quite close to taking the deep dive into an apocalyptic catastrophe. Strangely enough it is admirable that South Africa produced the leaders it needed to get out of the stalemate it had been cornered into by the bigotry of a racist and fascist regime.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne