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Ben du Toit is a schoolteacher who always has considered himself a man of caring and justice, at least on the individual level. When his gardener's son is brutally beaten up by the police at a demonstration by black school children, he gradually begins to realize his own society is built on a pillar of injustice and exploitation.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Welcome to South Africa, Benjamin Du Toit.,
By
This review is from: A Dry White Season (DVD)
Susan Surandon's cynical remark to Donald Sutherland, indicating that although he's lived all his life in South Africa, he was oblivoius to the brutality surrounding his normal family life. Schoolteacher Meneer Du Toit literally loses everything in his struggle to bring justice to those responsible for the deaths of his gardener and his gardener's son. Feeling guilty after taking his gardener's son's death a little too lightly, he is immediately swept up in the chaotic world of corruption and bloody cover-ups, after seeing the body of his badly beaten and tortured friend of 15 years.
The movie is full of gripping scenes and holds nothing back, with brutal slayings of children, torture scenes, and a disturbing view into a hospital mortuary. The film is primarily rated R for these violent images. Marlon Brando, although appearing for maybe 15-20 minutes of the film, really takes over in his scenes, as slick barrister, Ian MacKenzie. Even though his courtroom battle is futile, he certainly gets in his licks. He played his character to a tee, and definitely deserved the Oscar nomination, despite the controversy that year, over his limited screen time. I was much younger when I first rented the film around 1990, and it hits me harder today than it did back then. It's a well acted film, and a powerful one, Donald Sutherland gives and incredible perfomance and a particularly moving scene in the film is when he is in tears on the phone, speaking to his daughter, after finally realizing she has betrayed him. Except for his son, most of his family, friends, and colleagues do not wish to associate with him after the path his as chosen in fighting a losing battle against corruption. A top notch film about a man willing to give up everything, in pursuit of truth and justice over the wrongful death of a friend. This should be on everyone's must see list of important 80's films.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding, powerful and moving,
By
This review is from: A Dry White Season (DVD)
Ben du Toit is a schoolteacher who always has considered himself a man of caring and justice, at least on the individual level. When his gardener's son is brutally beaten up by the police at a demonstration by black school children, he gradually begins to realize his society is built on a pillar of injustice and exploitation.
This incredibly powerful film deals intelligently with the devastatingly brutal tensions surrounding the explosive issues within assumed class tiers and the racially incongruous tempest that was the violent melting pot of southern Africa. Sutherland's performance is one of his finest, ably backed up by Susan Sarandon.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Apartheid tragedies,
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This review is from: A Dry White Season (DVD)
In the most disturbing drama based on André Brink's novel A DRY WHITE SEASON, Donald Sutherand stars as a South African high school history teacher. Susan Sarandon is a British newspaperwoman working in that country. Marlon Brando has a minor role as an attorney who, for Sutherland's sake, takes the government and police to court, presents overwhelming evidence of massive abuse by authorities but loses the case.
The story opens with a protest in Soweto in which children as young as 10 participate. When the crowd of peaceful but vociferous sign-holding demonstrators refuse to disperse, a militia-like police force fires tear gas cannisters among them. These are picked up and thrown back at the cops who respond with indiscriminate rifle fire. Many are killed including several youngsters at the front of the crowd. Sutherland gets involved when he learns that the son of his gardener of 15 years is among the many missing. Eventually they're told the boy has died and is already buried. The father never gets the body back. Thus begins a string of atrocities perpetrated by one brutal police captain, played by Jürgen Prochnow. Sutherland, Sarandon and Stanley (Zakes Mokae), their native contact in Soweto gather affidavits from victims tortured by police and try to find a way to get these papers out of the country and to the media. The teacher pays dearly for his activism. He's fired for being a traitor to whites, his wife and daughter leave him and the girl actually betrays him twice, resulting first in the bombing of his garage and then in something far worse. The story ends unresolved, as in 1989 the struggle against the exploitative injustice of apartheid was still ongoing. The outrage I felt at witnessing reenactments of so many crimes committed by Afrikaaners upon their native countrymen, women and children stayed with me long after the credits finished rolling. By all means, see A DRY WHITE SEASON, but be prepared to come away from this experience equally revolted and angered.
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