Mapantsula

I believe Mapantsula is one of the best movies about the struggle against oppression ever made (almost up there with Satyajit Ray's Distant Thunder, Puenzo's Official Story, and Beresford's Breaker Morant in my book). Like these other films, it beautifully and powerfully focuses on the impact of government violence on the lives of characters who are, at first, unaware of the larger forces which have been shaping their lives.

Mapantsula was ingeniously made under the noses of the South African apartheid censors. The director submitted a script for an innocuous crime-drama, and while the censors were on the set, that is what they filmed. When the censors were not hovering immediately nearby, they filmed the real script - the story of a mapantsula, or thief, who becomes politicized in an apartheid jail. Once they edited the film, they smuggled the finished print out of the country.

The film is at times brutal in its realistic depiction of the physical and psychological tortures employed by the regime of that time. At other times, it is a lyrical and believable evocation of the growing consciousness, and evolving conscience, of the title character, as he encounters more overtly political prisoners in the jail.

I think Mapantsula is far superior to most other anti-apartheid feature films, although I enjoyed (that is to say, I cried through) Menges' A World Apart, and the documentary Last Grave at Dimbaza was superb.

This movie was one of many premiered at the Lincoln Center last year in New York in honor of the 10 year celebration of South Africa's democracy and the end of the struggle with apartheid. It had a powerful effect on me through it's socially realistic capturing of the life of Panic and the struggles that he undergoes under the systematically supported racist system.

Mapantsula is remarkable for two reasons. The first is the fact that it was shot as a mere crime movie under the overbearing eyes of the white censors and, when they were away, was filmed for the movie that we now know it to be. This adds to the film realism and significance by detailing a story that would otherwise not be told. Often times smuggled films come across as rough and unedited; however, Mapantsula manages to engage the viewer in the story of Panic, and particularly, in the story of how women are oppressed in their struggles to simply make a daily living while keeping their white employers happy and away from the perception that they are bringing their troubles into the white's homes (even though it is, ironically, the whites faults that such troubles persisted in South Africa for so long).

I am visiting South Africa this winter and this movie is one of the things that drew me to want to view the nation. Politically, it a nation with a tortured history that has managed, under oppression, to produce powerful leaders such as Mandela who have risen above the system to fight it and prove that humanity (not just democracy for even this form of government can sometimes be oppressive) will always triumph if the desire and fight for dignity remains alive.

The film has one message: "No." Say no to the racism, say no to apartheid, say no to hatred and national oppression of human dignity, and say no to any government that does not give you your natural rights. I regard it as one of my favorites among South African cinema.

I have always wondered how on earth that film was shot in South Africa at the time, especially given how heavy handed the Apartheid government was, when it came to movies that touched on the subject of the struggle against such a brutal system, until I read the "Featured Review". It makes total sense now. Thank you for sharing that. I just wish this could be a movie that could be readily available on mainstream channels such as, HBO, PRIME, Hulu, NETFLIX etc etc .... Yes, it's really that good. Such things, like the story of "Panic" for instance, did happen and many like it, but of course were never reported, or at the very list censored out of existence.

Thomas Mogotlane portrays the life of a South African street thug with aplomb. The life style of this Pantsula on the screen is what you would have found in the Township Streets in that era. The apartheid struggle, the "struggle chants", the rent boycotts, the prison, the black police officers who never pondered about the future of their black brother & sisters, the midnight raids,everything in the movie is so eloquently presented. I have seen a number of movies that deals with apartheid but non comes close to Mapantsula. I was so touched by the situation and conditions that are portrayed in the movie because I can relate to them. Everything in the movie brought memories of the past. But I watched with pride because most of the things in the movies has been conquered. I agree, this is the best movie to have ever come out of South Africa to date. Thomas Mogotlane's performance is superb, Oscar winning stuff.