A DRY, WHITE SEASON (Palcy, 1989)
Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Dec 11, 2018
Review by Christopher S. Long
Director Euzhan Palcy's “A Dry, White
Season” (1989) focuses in part on the awakening of a man who has
remained willfully asleep for years. Born and raised in South Africa,
the middle-aged Ben Du Toit (Donald Sutherland) still maintains his
unquestioned faith in the Apartheid system. In Ben's worldview, black
South Africans might be poorer than whites, but everyone's treated
fairly in the eyes of the law, and they're all pretty happy too. His
black gardener Gordon Ngubene (Winston Ntshona) has been a family
friend for years, and their sons even play together.
It will take a lot to shake Ben's
blinkered confidence. When Gordon's son is picked up by police simply
for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and then brutally
caned, Ben feels bad but insists, “He must have done something.”
When a police assault on protestors results in the boy's death, Ben
is upset, but still believes an appeal to the authorities will ensure
that justice is done “to the full extent of the law.” Ben will
need a lot of convincing to accept that the system is inherently
racist and corrupt, but eventually his eyes will be pried wide open.
Ben's ignorance is all the more
astonishing for the fact that he's actually a history teacher, which
doesn't leave really leave him much of an excuse. Even more
astonishing is the fact that director Euzhan Palcy's story isn't
better known because her journey to making “A Dry, White Season”
is nothing short of remarkable.
Born and raised in Martinique, Palcy
moved to Paris as a teenager to study film and literature. At the age
of 25, she directed her first feature film, “Sugar Cane Alley”
(1983), which became a major festival hit. Earning the admiration and
support of film luminaries such as Francois Truffaut and Robert
Redford, she relocated to America and soon drew attention from
Hollywood studios.
Palcy rejected a series of studio
projects in order to pursue her own, an adaptation of Andre Brink's
novel about Apartheid abuses, “A Dry, White Season.” To research
the project, Palcy traveled to South Africa incognito to secretly
interview victims who had been tortured by the state. Palcy not only
became the first black woman to direct a film released by a major
Hollywood studio (MGM), she even convinced the legendary Marlon
Brando to return to the big screen after a decade-long retirement to
play a fiery anti-Apartheid lawyer who knows his case is lost before
he ever gets to court.
Shot primarily in Zimbabwe and
employing many South African actors, Palcy's film enrages almost from
the start. The police don't hesitate to employ deadly force at the
first sign of even a peaceful protest from black South Africans.
Torture is their first line of interrogation, used not so much to
gain information as to assert white dominance. The details Palcy
uncovered in her investigation make this aspect of the film
particularly harrowing.
Ben may become a crusader for justice
after his blinders are removed, but neither his colleagues nor his
wife and daughter follow in his footsteps. If they were willfully
ignorant before, once confronted with evidence of state abuse, they
don't change their minds at all. They simply don't care, treating Ben
as a pariah, and even, in his wife's words, a traitor to his race.
It might sound like the story risks
wandering into “white savior” territory, but Ben is never held up
as a a paragon. Political activist Stanley (Zakes Mokae in perhaps
the film's best performance) provides Ben access to the lives of
black South Africans, but he makes it crystal clear he has his own
agenda and isn't there just to teach the white man a life lesson.
When Stanley hides Ben under a mat in the back seat of his car to
sneak him into Soweto, there's no doubt who the outsider is.
Apartheid still reigned in 1989, and
Palcy and several of her cast members put themselves at personal risk
to craft this testament to the immorality and corruption of the
entire system, one supported actively by virtually every white South
African seen in the film. It's absolutely infuriating from start to
finish, a record of unadulterated evil that viewers are unlikely ever
to forget.
Video:
The film is presented in its original
1.85:1 aspect ratio. From Criterion: “This new digital transfer was
created in 4K resolution on a Lasergraphics Director film scanner
from the 35 mm original camera negative.” The 1080p transfer is
sharp throughout and looks good in motion as well. It might be a bit
shy of Criterion's top-of-the-line transfers, but the image quality
is quite strong.
Audio:
The linear PCM stereo mix provides a
solid treatment of the film's terrific soundtrack, featuring music by
Dave Grusin and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Optional English SDH
subtitles are provided.
Extras:
The first extra is an interview of
writer/ director Euzhan Palcy, conducted by critic Scott Foundas
(2018, 35 min.) Palcy talks about her background and the heavy
lifting she needed to do to get “A Dry, White Season” made at
MGM. She's a very engaging speaker, and I found this to be one of the
better director interviews I've seen in a while.
Palcy returns to analyze “Five
Scenes” (29 min.) from the film, beginning with the early mass
protest that ends in a police slaughter. Great stuff here too.
In 1995, Palcy met with South African
President Nelson Mandela. Here, we get an excerpt (3 min.) from an
interview she recorded with him in Johannesburg.
The disc also includes a short segment
(5 min.) from a 1989 episode of NBC's “Today” show in which
Bryant Gumbel interviews Donald Sutherland about the movie. And we
also get a short (1 min.) video of Palcy receiving the 2017 Order of
the Companions of O.R. Tambo, South Africa's highest distinction for
foreign dignitaries.
The slim fold-out booklet features an
essay by scholar and filmmaker Jyoti Mistry.
Final Thoughts:
I'm hardly an expert on the subject,
but Euzhan Palcy's “A Dry, White Season” is the best film I've
ever seen about Apartheid. As far as I know, this is the first
Blu-ray release in North America of a film that surely deserves to be
described as essential viewing. That's reason enough to call this one
of the best Blu-ray releases of the year.
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