european-films.net - review: Goodbye Bafana (Berlinale 2007)

A co-production involving many European countries, Goodbye Bafana tells the apparently true story of the white South African prison guard James Gregory, whose life became entwined with that of the political prisoner Nelson Mandela because he was one of the few guards to speak fluent Xhosa.

The life story of Nelson Mandela is of course a screenplay waiting to happen, but director Bille August rsquo;s sideways approach to the material lacks a strong hook other than the slow transformation of Gregory rsquo;s white supremacist point of view, which is predictable and robs the story of suspense, turning the film into a slide-show presentation of scenes from the life of the guard and his family in a manner reminiscent of reverent TV biopics that would rather be long than exclude minor details.

Though French director Olivier Dahan rsquo;s approach to the life of French singer E dith Piaf in his La m me (La Vie en Rose) -- also a competition title here in Berlin -- did not fully work, it was certainly not a by-the-numbers narrative biopic; by jumbling its timeline it tried to focus on Piaf rsquo;s personality instead. Goodbye Bafana is a good example of what Dahan was trying to avoid: a dry, old-school approach that takes the audience by the hand and guides it from scene to scene, explaining what it should feel when and where.

In August rsquo;s film, written by Greg Latter and based on Gregory rsquo;s autobiography (which some say exaggerates facts and has never been confirmed by Mandela as being true), a young Gregory learns Xhosa when growing up on an inland farm with a black boy called Bafana as the only companion of his age. They share a true childhood friendship that apparently means nothing in adulthood, because Gregory as a grown up (played by Shakespeare from Shakespeare in Love: Joseph Fiennes) has become a prison guard who rigidly enforces the ideas and ideals of Apartheid in his day-to-day tasks. Latter and August never seem to focus on this split-personality aspect of their protagonist, however, preferring an outside view of their protagonist rather than a psychological portrait.

It is 1968 when, together with his wife Gloria (Diane Kruger, from Les brigades du tigre/The Tiger Brigades) and their children, Gregory is transferred to Robben Island, the high security facility where political prisoners are held, including the nominal head of the then-illegal African National Congress or ANC: Nelson Mandela (US actor Dennis Haysbert). Because of his knowledge of Xhosa, Gregory is asked to be the regime rsquo;s window into the soul of Mandela and the other prisoners, by casually eavesdropping on them and censoring their letters.

Gregory complies, spurred on by his wife, who longs for a successful career for her husband to make up for her own failure in the hairdressing business.

August, one of the very few directors to have made two Palme d rsquo;or-winning films, does not comply, however: rather than a window into the soul of Mandela, Goodbye Bafana is an old-fashioned melodramatic weepie in which the character arc is so obvious from the outset that any self-doubt expressed by the character feels like an obstruction of justice.

At the time the story is set, the ANC was classified as a terrorist organisation and used violence as a means to an end. In Goodbye Bafana, members of the ANC are indeed referred to as terrorists, but the fear instilled by the ANC in the ruling white minority through their use of violence is never shown (which would have made dramatic sense since it is exactly this fear that kept Apartheid alive).

The only acts of violence shown are those committed by the ruling whites on the suppressed blacks, with the ANC, led by Haysbert rsquo;s sombre Mandela, coming across as a saintly organisation.

There is nothing of the edge of a film such as Paradise Now, a vivid exploration of why people who are oppressed might to turn violence to have their voice heard; Goodbye Bafana could have told this story from the side of the oppressor, but instead opts for hero-worship from afar from the point of view of a white male, continuing a tradition of other recent Africa-set, foreign-financed films that include Blood Diamond, Catch a Fire and Shooting Dogs. European co-productions between many countries tend to have their distinct voice drowned out by the many collaborators on the project: Goodbye Bafana, a co-production involving Germany, France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Italy and South Africa, is in fact little more than Europudding in chocolate sauce.

This film was screened as part of the 2007 Berlin Film Festival.
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