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Reviews for South Africa Belongs to Us (1980) | |
| Reviews: 1. California Newsreel, accessed 2005 This intimate portrait of five typical black South African women reveals the dehumanizing reality of life under apartheid. The personal stories of a wife left behind in the homelands, a hospital cleaner living in a single-sex hostel, a public health nurse from Soweto, a domestic servant and a leader of a squatters' camp, still provide the best introduction on film to the daily violence wreaked by apartheid on family life and the social fabric. At the same time, these five women's resilience demonstrate the strength which will be able to build a new South Africa. 2. The Daily Express "A modern saga of human misery. This film allows the facts - and the women - to speak for themselves." 3. The Daily Mail "Five brave women face the cameras illegally to talk of their fear and frustration under apartheid...A damning tale." 4. First Run Icarus Films, accessed 2005 A film portraying the daily struggles in the lives of black women in South Africa. With observational portraits of five ordinary women, and with the insight of four women activists, the film depicts the battle of the black woman for human dignity in the face of apartheid: from the struggle for a roof over her head and food for her children, to black consciousness-raising and the total liberation of her people. Working covertly, the filmmakers were able to gain access for the first time to places like the huge segregated barracks built for so-called migrant workers, where women are condemned to spend their lives separated from their families. A woman on one of the barren "homelands" lives with her 13 children, forbidden to join her husband who has had to live alone in Johannesburg for 20 years. The film looks at the life of a domestic servant in a white household who has little time to visit her own children, and at the life of a nurse at one of the few family planning clinics for blacks in Soweto. There are also scenes from Crossroads, an illegal shanty town outside Cape Town where the defiance of women has created a spirited community. Interviewed in the film are also Winnie Mandela, the banned and banished women's leader who has become a symbol of resistance in South Africa; Fatimah Meer, an Indian sociologist who is forbidden to publish or be quoted; and Numisi Kjuzwayo, a young leader of the outlawed Black Consciousness Movement. The power of this film comes from the women themselves, in their spirit of defiance in the face of enormous obstacles. The breadth of their experience provides a unique perspective on the system of apartheid, and on life in South Africa today. 5. Time Out "Highly recommended. One of the best indictments of the white South African regime." 6. New Standard "Startling in its matter-of-factness.This clandestine film presents a unique picture of everyday South Africa from five very individual, female viewpoints." Geoffrey Hobbs 7. Voice of Youth Advcoates "An especially hard-hitting look at the human cost of South Africa's unjust racial policies." 8. The New York Times, 25 June 1986. We denounce apartheid because we are supposed to; the word is associated with something wicked. What apartheid specifically is, however, is often vague, and images of armored cars, say, or crowds in Soweto do not necessarily explain it. ''Women of South Africa'' may not explain apartheid, either, but watch it, or at least its first part, and you will reach a fuller understanding. It will be seen on Channel 21 at 10 o'clock tonight. The 90-minute program is made up of two reports: ''Maids and Madams'' and ''South Africa Belongs to Us.'' This last, originally shown by public television in 1982, interviews black women in South Africa, including Winnie Mandela. ''Maids and Madams,'' meanwhile, is the richer of the two films. It is based, says the author Nadine Gordimer, the host of the program, on the work of a white South African feminist scholar, who concluded that ''sisterhood'' couldn't be shared between black and white women while black women were poor and deprived. This is a sensible conclusion, applicable to women in places other than South Africa. ''Maids and Madams,'' however, is specifically about South African women, and, by extension, a political system that reinforces their roles. Apartheid, if you will, helps white women to get their laundry done. ''Maids and Madams'' interviews some of the one million black domestic workers in South Africa and the white women who employ them. The gulf between them is huge. Sisterhood is an abstraction; low wages, no pensions, arbitrary dismissals and separation from one's own children are real. There are ironies here: ''Maids and Madams'' shows us an organization of white women who are trying, often effectively, to obtain better treatment for the domestic workers. But we also see a black activist with a depressing message for whites: ''The more human you become, the more threatening you become.'' Apartheid, apparently, encapsulates fear. Nonetheless, ''Maids and Madams,'' a production of Britain's Channel 4, is not mordant. The women we see are strong. Indeed, Sheena Duncan, founder of the civil-rights organization Black Sash, explains why she enlisted only women. ''The men were quarreling among themselves,'' she says. ''There was a feeling women would get on with it.'' | |
| Review Links: http://www.newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0087 http://www.frif.com/cat97/p-s/sabtu.html http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE6DE103CF936A15755C0A960948260 |