Cry: The Beloved Country [DVD] [1951] - Classic Drama Film Based on Alan Paton's Novel - Perfect for Movie Nights & Literature Enthusiasts

Back in the tumultuous ‘60’s, when we thought we were getting somewhere in terms of bettering society, and did make some real progress, James Baldwin was my guide on one (or was it two?) of the fronts. I read several of his novels, including the subject title. Similar themes involving racism were also being addressed on foreign shores. In 1964 I read Alan Paton classic novel which was published in 1948. I still have much of the ending memorized. I vowed to go there and see for myself, a vow I kept a decade and a half later, going for three weeks each, three times. I re-read the novel in 2010 and posted my review on Amazon.Darrell Roodt directed the film adaptation of Paton’s novel. It was released in 1995. It certainly stars the country itself, with significant portions filmed in Natal province with the ever-enticing Drakensburg Mountains in the background. The year is 1946. Considerable effort was made to recreate the period, including vintage cars and even a vintage airplane. There is nary a hint that World War II just ended, nor is there a hint of the on-going conflict between the whites of British descent and the whites of Dutch descent (called Afrikaners) which culminated in a transformative shift in political power to the later in the election of 1948. Jan Christian Smuts won the election and would become Prime Minister, establishing the racial system known as apartheid. So, the inequities in racial relations depicted in the movie were actually pre-apartheid.James Earl Jones is the star, the “umfundisi” as he is repeatedly called in the movie, a Zulu word which means “pastor.” Jones is a superb actor. In checking his filmography, he has at least 106 films to his credit, including “Sandlot” and “Hunt for Red October.” I was surprised when I read that he was also in “Dr. Strangelove.” Jones plays Stephen Kumalo and is the pastor of a rural church in Natal. Besides the racial divisions depicted in the movie, there is also the rural – urban divide, with the latter being represented by Jo’burg (Johannesburg). When the children leave the rural setting for the mammon that is Jo’burg, they rarely write home. Stephen Kumalo goes to the big city in search of his sister, Gertrude, and his son, Absalom.Richard Harris plays the part of a conservative farmer whose farm is not far from Kumalo’s church. Harris’ son is a white liberal activist, Arthur Jarvis, working with Blacks in Jo’burg. Jarvis, the son, will be murdered by Kumalo’s son, Absalom, played very well by Vusi Kunene, in a botched robbery. I felt that Richard Harris was the equal of Jones, in his displays of grief, and in his transformation towards adopting some of his son’s beliefs. The scenes of the two of them together, both in their respective griefs, are heart-rending.There are the courtroom scenes leading to the predictable denouement, particularly for someone who is Black. The verdict is carried out 15 days after sentencing and on that day the umfundisi carries his grief high into the mountains seeking some solace when “the sun tips with light the mountains of Ingeli and East Griqualand…Ndotsheni is still in darkness, but the light will come there also. For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing. But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.”Alan Paton died in 1988, not living long enough to see the end of apartheid in 1994. That event did not issue in a new era of emancipation. It seems that the violence depicted in the movie has only intensified. 5-stars, for the movie adaptation of the classic novel on race relations in South Africa.