Recap: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is about to start in South Africa in a try to start a healing process in the divided country. People are able to bring their stories, their questions and their grievances before the commission and the responsible perpetrators is granted amnesty, if they tell the entire truth and can prove that their action were politically motivated, i.e. they were following orders. Journalists from the entire world travel to cover the event and so Anna Malan, an Afrikaan poet working for a South African station meet with American reporter Langston Whitfield. Together with Anna's sound technician Dumi Mkhalipi (and a lot of other journalists) they follow the Commission that tours the country and listen to the appalling stories.
Comments: A interesting and catching movie trying to heal some wounds that tore through South Africa. Most appalling stories are brought to the front, but also forgiveness and images of a beautiful country. Binoche and Jackson perform beautifully as the reporters but the best acting performances is done by Menzi Ngubane as the charming sound technician Dumi and Brendan Gleeson as the cold calculating apartheid colonel De Jager, whom Whitfield interviews. That interview is told parallel to the main story and those subplots interact in a very interesting fashion.
It is a good pairing with Binoche and Jackson, and one could feel early on that there was something between their characters. But when it started to get a little warm I thought, "Luckily she is married (happily) and has three boys, and he is probably married too (we only know that he has one kid)". Ten seconds later they went at it. I think it was unfortunate and unnecessary to bring in a love/cheat story into this as it steals attention and focus from the main cause, the commission. I guess the team wanted some drama, added to the main story that almost is a dramatized documentary. But they are wrong, the main story is strong enough on its own, and it was a mistake to introduce the love story. They should have stuck to the main story alone, it would have been better.
7/10
Comments: A interesting and catching movie trying to heal some wounds that tore through South Africa. Most appalling stories are brought to the front, but also forgiveness and images of a beautiful country. Binoche and Jackson perform beautifully as the reporters but the best acting performances is done by Menzi Ngubane as the charming sound technician Dumi and Brendan Gleeson as the cold calculating apartheid colonel De Jager, whom Whitfield interviews. That interview is told parallel to the main story and those subplots interact in a very interesting fashion.
It is a good pairing with Binoche and Jackson, and one could feel early on that there was something between their characters. But when it started to get a little warm I thought, "Luckily she is married (happily) and has three boys, and he is probably married too (we only know that he has one kid)". Ten seconds later they went at it. I think it was unfortunate and unnecessary to bring in a love/cheat story into this as it steals attention and focus from the main cause, the commission. I guess the team wanted some drama, added to the main story that almost is a dramatized documentary. But they are wrong, the main story is strong enough on its own, and it was a mistake to introduce the love story. They should have stuck to the main story alone, it would have been better.
7/10