Sarafina

Sarafina

Sarafina
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DVD details

Actor: Dumisani Dlamini, John Kani, Leleti Khumalo, Miriam Makeba, Whoopi Goldberg
Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 117 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-06-04
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Walt Disney Video

DVD Reviews of Sarafina

DVD Review: magnificent
Summary: 5 Stars

This is an old film, 1992, and given the date it must have been filming during the last days of apartheid. That gives it an even more powerful edge. Viewers today can look on it as a historical film, but it isn't.

I had never heard of Leleti Khumalo before. As Sarafina, she gives a performance that is restrained and stunning in its simplicity and power. Sarafina herself is a complex and passionate young girl, a Black South African student, a dreamer inspired by her morally and intellectually powerful teacher, played by Whoopi Goldberg. It is to my everlasting shame that the conditions and brutality of apartheid came home to me first via this film. In my mind I knew apartheid was a bad thing, but in a vague sense I thought it was just a matter of separateness that should be changed. Now I have a sense of how dreadful it was; I doubt anyone can claim to know how dreadful it was unless they lived it.

I knew who Mandela was and that he had been imprisoned for years. I didn't know that schoolchildren were brutalized and tortured. Oddly, one of the most sickening parts didn't involve dogs or whips or guns or electric shock, but the smiling, vapid blond woman who, never losing her smile, looks at Serafina who is filthy from being jailed and tortured, obviously still in shock from the experience, and chirps, "Are you all right?" Living her life of privilege, employing Serafina's mother as a maid, and completely oblivious to the truth of what's around her. As oblivious as was I, a half a world away.

I've never been a Whoopi Goldberg fan, but her performance was magical. The music was exotic and unforgettable, and authentic. The directing was flawless.

This is a film everyone should see. I think it should be shown in history classes in high school. I don't know if it ever won any awards, but if it didn't there's something wrong. It should have harvested them all.

And now I'm going see what other films the wonderful Miss Leleti Khumalo is in.
Many, I hope.

Ruth Sims
author of The Phoenix
More Sarafina reviews:
1 2 3 4 5

Description of Sarafina

This critically acclaimed film deals with a teacher her students and their struggles in a world torn apart by war. It is an uplifting film filled with music and energy. Studio: Buena Vista Home Video Release Date: 01/25/2005 Starring: Whoopi Goldberg Miriam Makeba Run time: 98 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Darrell James Roodt
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