Cry Freedom

Richard Attenborough, USA 1987, 157 minutes

From the opening montage showing a brutal, bloody military raid on an illegal black township, to the inspiring, rousing final scenes, this is a truly great and important film, bringing home in an unflinching style the terror and injustice of life under apartheid.

Donald Woods (Kevin Kline) is a white newspaper editor whose paper runs a scathing piece on black rights activist Steve Biko (Denzel Washington). He is then confronted by one of Biko's people who challenges him to meet the man he wrote about, to see with his own eyes rather than the eyes of prejudice. On meeting Biko, Woods is won over by this charming, level-headed, enigmatic figure and the two form a friendship of sorts. The first half of the film concerns the meeting of these two minds, the exchange of ideas between two men who are open-minded enough to find out the other side of the story. The interplay between the two leads is marvellous. An authentic air of friendship pervades their scenes, as both actors give the performances of their careers. Washington in particular is magnetic as Biko, always with a wry, knowing twinkle in his eye and an ability to say the unsayable.

Things take a sharp turn halfway through. Woods and his family become the targets of a series of vicious, racially motivated attacks and threats, and they soon see that they will not be safe unless they flee. They leave their ultra-luxurious mansion (where in the first half we have seen Kline relaxing into his life of privilege and perceived racial superiority), taking only a car-load of possessions, and begin a long, dangerous trek to freedom and safety.

Attenborough balances the two acts well, and repeatedly shows that his well-known flair for crowd scenes and tense set-pieces has not left him. This film may seem like propaganda but it is based on real-life incidents and people, all shown in an even handed fashion. Nothing is forced down our throats, but this is because the events depicted bring across the message much more effectively than any slogan or political diatribe could ever hope to.

"Once Attenborough achieves his momentum, there's no holding him... Cry Freedom is political cinema at its best" - Time Out

Review by Ben Stephens
Taken from EUFS Programme 1996-97