Modder en bloed

Another rewriting of history. The British are bad. The British are bad. Blah blah blah. The Boers felt that the native Africans were inferior and should be treated as slaves. The British insisted that Africans should have rights.

Since todays Boers would like to forget that bit lets make a film where the British are bad and misdirect attention.

Though brilliant practitioners of guerrilla warfare, the Boers eventually surrendered to British forces in 1902, thus ending the independent existence of the Boer republics.

Despite their reabsorption into the British colonial system subsequent to the war, the Afrikaners retained their language and culture and eventually attained politically the power they had failed to establish militarily. Apartheid was soon reestablished in South Africa, remained key to the country's public policies throughout most of the 20th century, and was abolished in the 1990s only after global censure.

Afrikaners in the early 21st century made up about 60 percent of the white population of South Africa, approximately 2,600,000 people.

This is a very good film and one that is long overdue. It was enormously healing for me to watch this, having lived in England and being told constantly that the Afrikaner was backward. Of course, it is idealistic, in the sense of evolution and salvation offered to some of the English participants. The English never repented and Emily Hobhouse, heroine as she was, was far in the minority. There was no one to save us by a people intent on wiping us out. The truth is that the awful Australian is made to pay the price for the truly awful misdeeds of the British (directed by the English) in that war. Some reviewers suggested that the Australian ought to have been depicted with greater nuance. Really? Where was the nuance when our women and children were murdered in concentration camps? Where was the nuance when everything we owned was destroyed? Where was the nuance when in excess of 20 000 black South Africans were murdered in even more horrific circumstances in separate (apartheid) concentration camps? With this war having had such an effect on our history and so many English lies and excuses presented about it, this film should be viewed, not only by every South African, but by every citizen of every colonially oppressed country as well as the Germans, French, Dutch and citizens of the five eyes nations.

Never got past fifteen minutes once they'd introduced the Italian uniforms which the "British" were wearing.

I knew prior to watching this it was a historical drama, and not a true story which is important to know before watching it.

I watched several documentaries and have recently visited South Africa. It's true that the Boers were seen as primitive at the time and the British took their lands and forced them into concentration camps in the hope that they would perish and/or give up. Historical records are scarce as there was not a lot of time for note taking/journaling in such a war.

A great story of the human spirit in the face of cruelty and oppression which has and is faced by many groups, even to this day.