Nelson Mandela had spent a good quarter of a century behind bars and the blood poured at the Soweto uprising had not dried yet when "A World Apart" was released. And yet movies made at the pinacle of the anti-apartheid sentiment became quickly outdated by the march of history, right down to being prejudicial to the spirit of reconciliation advocated by the Nobel Prize Winner after his liberation. As if his aura was so powerful it could erase the bad memories... or the film that retold them.
Yet it so happens that I saw that unknown little gem, directed by Chris Menges, in 1992. I found it by chance on Amazon Prime, the title rang a bell, the girl's face and her name 'Molly' left no doubt: it was THAT film, my earliest memory of something that made me took racism seriously. I was 10. And so before the second viewing, second after 30 years, I decided to challenge my memory. How many scenes did I remember after all that time? Three plus the final image, which isn't bad. In fact, the film impacted me more than I thought.
I remembered the scene where Molly's snotty friend was calling the waiter by a patronizing "boy" much to her embarrassment, I remembered the line "he's got a name". For some reason, I also had in mind little moment when she's distracted by a butterfly and the teacher asks her "are you with us?", to which an anonymous voice dryly answers "no she's against us" (and the sense wasn't lost in the French version). I remembered the passionate speech from Albee Lesotho, punctuated by these 'Amandla' cheers with the resonance of vocal spears and that taken me back to the title of a comic-book: "Dr. Justice: Amandla!". Finally, the image that was engraved in my memory was the last shot of a young man throwing a rock in slow motion toward the white men's tanks under the pulsating rhythm Hans Zimmer's first score.
Now I'm trying to find a common denominator, why did I remember these scenes in particular? Maybe because as a kid I could relate to what seemed like a good coming-of-age story, one about an introverted girl who grew up in the vicinity of one of the most atrocious regimes of the last century: the apartheid. In appearance, the film is less about the apartheid than the way it affects the girl and the relationship with her family. Oddly enough, that the apartheid is "only" in the backdrop doesn't make it any less visible, it's as discreet as a foundation on a severe burn.
And so Molly, the 'heroine' played by Jodhi May, lives in the bourgeois comfort of her suburban house, made even bigger by the casual absence of her parents. She is surrounded by dolls, posters, a little sister, but the closest to a friend is the Africain maid (Linda Mvusi). Molly goes to school, takes flamenco lessons, listens to rock music and yet she's closer to the Apartheid than she thinks, for her mother Diana Roth is an actual militant undergoing severe harassment by the police until her eventual arrest, she's based on Ruth First whose story was written by her daughter Shawn Slovo. She's played by Barbara Hershey in a performance where pathos never goes in the way of dignity, Hershey doesn't go for the easy tears à la Sally Field. Maybe it's for that reason that I didn't remember any of the mother's part or the relationship with a more comprehensive police officer (David Suchet).
And thinking about it, these things escape the attention of a child and maybe an adult. One would expect a film about a South-African pacifist to explore the dark corridors of unofficial jails. In fact, the film is never as interesting as when it shows things from Molly's perspective. And Jodhi May has that melancholic vibe of a seemingly privileged girl who can't stand living in a country that made a routine out of injustice starting with the horrific sight of a cyclist laying on the street after the driver who collided with him left at full speed.
By being so attentive to details of childhood and matters so trivial compared to the real deal, the film is actually more immersive and efficient, through the keyhole of peculiar details, a New Year's Eve party interrupted because Blacks and White are together, a singing moment with her nanny, harassment from girls accusing her parents to be traitors, we have as many relevant elements as if the film was made with the epic scope à la "Gandhi". Sometimes you don't need to show violence, the reaction of the nanny after losing someone dear speaks as loudly. In fact, the secrecy heightens the horror of the death.
Indeed, crowds scenes can be tricky because of that very anonymousness and the choice of painting this in all intimacy enhances the tragedy of the apartheid. And Jodhi May doesn't play an easy part as a girl also caught between two worlds and two ages, a moment of her life where she most needs her mother and blames her for being absent. It's a coming-of-age story embedded in the political turmoil of the fight for African civil rights, it starts with Molly and ends with the man throwing the stone, the key is within that change of perspective: Molly understands the real priorities.
Its interesting to see Suchet in another role than Hercule Poirot. Jodhi May might not be instantly recognized as the actress who played the youngest sister in "The Last of the Mohicans" four years later, ad Tim Roth has an interesting part as a young militant. Still, when it comes to anti-apartheid films, chances are that "Lethal Weapon 2" is a more famous example than "A World Apart" or "Cry Freedom" while some of us can still recall these "free apartheid" posters in TV sitcoms' and "Scatterlings Of Africa".
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