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When I was in high school twenty years ago, I was involved in a Model UN program. A couple times a year my classmates and I would travel to some city in the Midwest and spend five days role-playing diplomats from various countries. One year, I was a delegate from Somalia (when it was still a functioning country), another year someone from Yugoslavia (before it split up), my last year the People's Republic of China. The topics would change from year to year. The Falkland Islands crisis actually broke out in the middle of one conference. But one topic never changed--apartheid in South Africa. The arguments were always the same, the condemnations always vociferous, but after four years of repeating the same denunciations I was convinced that nothing would ever change, not in my lifetime at least. Of course, within a decade, apartheid had fallen, and Nelson Mandela was president.

The fact that this remarkable transition happened with such speed and so little violence is one of the great stories of the 20th century. A critical aspect was the Truth and Reconciliation commission, which began its work in 1996 under the chairmanship of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The commission traveled the country, hearing stories of murder, rape, torture, and theft. The accusers would have a chance to confront their oppressors. If the oppressors would admit their guilt and could show that they had acted under higher orders, they would be given amnesty for their crimes. The approach was both practical--to prosecute thousands of people for forty years of crimes would be incredibly destabilizing for the young government--and supremely hopeful (even utopian). Mandela believed that the only way the country could go forward was if the truth came out and then led to reconciliation.

In My Country, a new film featuring Juliette Binoche and Samuel L. Jackson, tries to document the commission's work. Jackson stars as Langston Whitfield, a Washington Post reporter who's been assigned to cover the proceedings. Binoche is Anna Malan, a white South African who's doing the same for a South African radio station. The characters personify the two main reactions to the commission's work. Langston is cynical, believing that the offenders should be punished and that these confessions are merely whitewashing. Anna is much more sympathetic, excited about the chance to put the past behind her and her new country.

The film's first half is engrossing, as it balances the growing friendship between Langston and Anna with actual testimony before the commission. Langston assumes at first that Anna is just covering up for her race, while she sees him as an interloper who doesn't understand the South African way of life. But their furious arguments, which are compelling, lead eventually to a greater understanding and appreciation, mirroring what director John Boorman (The Tailor of Panama) sees as the result of the commission's work. Binoche (The English Patient) and Jackson (Shaft) are two of the more charismatic actors working today, and their scenes together, at least in the film's first half, are electric.

Still, the testimonies themselves are even more gripping. They often begin with Reverend Mzondo, one of the chairmen, simply saying, "Please tell us your story." Then person after person describes the terrible things that were done to him, while those responsible sit nearby, shamed and contrite. Those unfamiliar with the tyrannical apartheid system will find these scenes enlightening and deeply troubling.

Unfortunately, this is a Hollywood movie with big-name stars, and big-name stars (and big-name producers) don't like it when anonymous characters and no-name actors start hogging the screen time. So "Please tell us your story" turns into "Now's time for the beautiful people's story." It goes without saying that Langston and Anna fall in love, despite the fact that both have children back home. That leads to a confrontation between Langston and Anna's less enlightened family, though one character shows her true spirit by discussing how much she likes Langston Hughes (yes, we saw that reference coming as well).

Then the film takes a bizarre turn when our two heroes decide to inspect a long-abandoned torture site in the middle of the night (ooh, scary), a site which somehow against all odds, still has the torture devices set up like a scene from Madame Toussaud's Wax Museum. What had been an interesting political film quickly devolves into standard Hollywood schlock. If that weren't enough, we also have a suicide from out of nowhere and the conviction of a real bad guy (so the audience in the theater can join the audience on screen in a delightful episode of booing and hissing). That the movie ends with a howler of a line--"my skin will never forget you"--just shows how far off the rails it's gone.

I guess I can encourage you to see the movie's first half (if you do, flee the theater when the stars get in bed for the second time--you'll know what I mean). And high school teachers might want to screen selected scenes to educate students who weren't even alive when apartheid fell. But for most of us, this attempt to show some history falls prey to our current problem of showing too many celebrities. 

J. Robert Parks 3/19/2005