 |
|
Classified People (1987) | |||||
| Director: Yolande Zauberman. Production Co. Obsession Films. Production Country: France. Format: 16mm, VHS/NTSC. 55 minutes. Color | |||||
| Country: South Africa | |||||
| Languages: Narration English. Speech English. | |||||
| Audience: Adult, Archival, Graduate, Undergraduate | |||||
| Genre: docudrama | |||||
| Specific Subjects: apartheid/anti-apartheid, politics/government, racial relations, society | |||||
| Synopsis: This is a film about the nature and effects of race classification on a multi-racial South African family. | |||||
| Critique: 1. An astonishingly intimate revelation of the contradictions of racial classification examined through the experiences of one family where the father, Robert, the son of a German mother and black father, is classified as 'colored'. Robert's two sons from his first wife, a Frenchwoman, are 'white'; and his second wife, Doris, who claims to be 'colored' is, in fact, classified as 'black'. Political attitudes which determine familial relations are exposed through the interactions of these individuals. The film uses observational ethnographic camera techniques to reveal the subjectivities of the four main characters, and how they respond socially to each other's officially imposed racial classifications. The narrative reveals how the two sons, Cyril and Remi, have interpellated themselves as 'white sons' in relation to their 'colored father'. The sons virtually ignore their black step-mother, who disengages herself from this role, locating herself outside the blood-ties of this male triad. A linking commentary about race classification legislation is provided through interviews with a 'white' lawyer, filmed in his office, in a distanced objective sort of way. A 'colored' journalist interviewed in his newsroom talks about how he resists his classification. This character thus completes the racial triad that constitutes three of the four main 'population' groups - 'white', black', 'colored' and 'Indian' or 'Asian'. (The 'Asian' category is not represented and the various sub-groups under the 'colored' rubric are not developed.) Classified People alerts viewers to the complexity of the situation, that the racial problem in South Africa is not simply 'black' vs. 'white', but that each 'group' is forced to live under different legislation and conditions, and different places, resulting in different attitudes and ways of coping and making sense of the world. The identity of the white film maker/narrator/interviewer is not clear, though something of a hybrid subjectivity emerges through editing style. It appears that the film is mainly the male narrator's autobiographical search for meaning, but which results in alienation. But Classified People is actually a film made by a French woman who conceals herself while she directs the South African narrator. Just whose subjectivity being reflected in the film is never made clear. Most shots of white South African narrator are side-on in his car framed by the window as the background passes by. His journey whisks him through obviously poverty-stricken 'black' and 'colored' shanty towns and squatter camps, contrasted with beautiful houses and lush gardens in white areas. The narrator's thoughts are punctuated by static shots of beautiful landscapes and gliding images of the concrete city, metaphors for a different world contingent upon a different, solely 'white' classification. These interruptions are distancing devices, reminiscent of schizophrenia, a word mentioned by the narrator in his search for meaning. They also reveal the narrator's guilt as 'oppressor' simply by being a member of the 'white' group, and his attempts to distance himself from this determination. The film lacks historical explanation of how the race classification system came into being in 1948, although Doris does talk about the integrated world that existed before apartheid. But she also apparently contradicts herself when she talks of how Robert registered as a 'colored' when volunteering to fight for the South African forces in the First World War. The film itself lacks historical consciousness, metaphorical of the way that most whites think that apartheid always existed. The racial, social and economic structures were already in place by that time, so much so that people conceived of themselves in the racial terms of the oppressor. However, the provision of historical material to explain this might have interrupted the producer's own lack of consciousness of historical process and the cinematic style he developed to communicate his a historical perception of race and racism in South Africa. 2. American Friends Service Committee Good follow-up to the film, Last Grave at Dimbaza . Exposes the lunacy of the classification system in South Africa, which classifies every person as White, Indian, colored or black. Centerpiece of the program is a family in which different members are classified as different colors. Best program to get an insight into the apartheid system and how it shapes every part of a person's life. | |||||
| Inventory: Visual 3 - The film begins with tracking shots close up through a car window foregrounding Roger, the white South African narrator. Rusted corrugated iron sheets, old cars, people walking by or sitting pass in the background. A brief scenic shot shows a plain with mountains. A slow location pan of black people clapping their hands and singing. Voice (Roger/narrator) Roger, in June 1987, saw a necklace victim - a 'cooked' human, looking like meat. He reflects on contrasts between the peace of white areas and the chaos of black areas. Visual 1 - A white drunk is spotlighted against a brick wall in long shot. Voice (white drunk) 'A kaffir is a kaffir and he is black and he is black and I am white and I am white ... what is he actually? He is no man.' Visual 4 - Location shots of dilapidated houses: overhanging trees blowing in the wind precede the title, Classified People. A short shot of Robert and Doris, the film's two main elderly characters. Doris is 'black', Robert is 'colored'. The narrator takes still pictures of Robert and Doris in their home. Shots first of Doris, then Robert, standing alone. Shots of Robert talking with Doris in their living room seated behind a table. Voices Race classification is responsible for apartheid's atrocities. 'Doris is 71. She is Robert's second wife'. They have lived together for 21 years. Robert fought within the 'colored' battalion in 1914 in France, where he married his first wife. Doris tells us that they had three boys and two girls, and lived happily until race classification after 1948 separated him from his two white children. Robert's wife died and his children 'shunned him' because he was classified 'colored'. Doris relates Robert's story. This family break-up occurred before Robert married Doris, a 'colored' classified 'black'. Visual 3 - Side-on tracking shots from a moving car passing through opulent white Cape Dutch houses, 'colored' barrack-like high density sub-economic apartments, and 'black' shanty areas on the sandy Cape Flats. Visual 2 - A white lawyer specializing in race classification, seated in his office, explains the legislation. Visual 4 - An intercut of a city just before nightfall. Scene changes to a cluttered newsroom. Interview with a 'colored' journalist. Intercuts of black children and residents in poverty-stricken black areas. Voice (Journalist) 'Two of my brothers are white and I am colored'. 'We are blood (biological) brothers but the mere fact that he carries a piece of paper, that shows him to be white, and I carry a bit that shows I am colored, he has the right to vote, and I haven't.' The Journalist talks about an official who asked him if he wanted to change his race to white. He discusses the methods of racial evaluation, and how they humiliate people. Voice (Roger/narrator) Statistics on how many people were able to change their race. Official figures from 1984. Between 500 and 1000 people reclassified every year. Visual 1 - Return to the white drunk 2 - return to opening shots of the narrator in his car. Passing through a background of desert-like bareness Voice (Roger/Narrator) Schizophrenia, propaganda system keeps whites naive and in another reality, leads to two different realities -- that of whites and that of others living in South Africa. Mournful singing, 'The Boers are dogs.' Visual 7 - Robert's house. Doris hangs up clothes. Robert talks to the narrator. A short shot of Robert and Doris having a picnic. Scene changes to the sea shore under a dark sky. Gulls and the crashing of waves are heard. Choral singing. Voices Doris and Robert on apartheid. Doris explains that Robert was classified 'colored' because he signed up for the military as a 'colored'. Visual 8 - Robert flanked by his two white sons. The family at lunch. Everyone appears tense. They are talking more to the camera than to each other. Robert and Doris talk about the patronizing attitude of the sons. Voices Doris: 'it was only 15 years ago that Cyril and Remi . . . | |||||
| Suggested Uses: Information on the Population Registration Act as a cornerstone of apartheid is necessary. | |||||
| Reviews: Click Here | |||||
Distributor Info:
| |||||
| Record updated: 2009-10-07 12:18:09 | |||||
|
||||||
|
