User Reviews

1st watched 4/26/2003 - 8 out of 10(Dir-Nigel Noble): Excellent documentary on the people who made the play "Sarafina" and their motivation behind it. The story of the play involves a black girl who voices her opinions in school and then is captured by the soldiers, who monitor all the black schools, and is beaten. She then returns with greater conviction about the freedom that the black people must be given in her country of South Africa. This isn't the whole story of the play, but this movie didn't give us the entire play. It was more about the performers and their conviction to be ambassadors for South Africa to spread the truthful reports about the law-accepting racism that occurs everyday in that country. Besides this, there is some wonderful music within the play and also from the performers backstage singing amongst themselves. It was obvious that these people had a passion for their country and for their cause of bringing freedom to blacks in their country. It was also very obvious that this is a very talented group of singers and performers. This documentary definitely whetted my appetite for seeing the actual play, which I believe was part of the purpose of it. There wasn't really much the director had to do on this story except let the performers talk and that's exactly what he did. Bravo for this historic and entertaining lesson on the South Africa nobody used to talk about.

I feel terrible for not endorsing this movie. The cast of Sarafina, who are the stars of this film, are a talented, dedicated, committed group of youngsters. There is a lot of energy expended as they try to communicate life under Apartheid in South Africa.

However, there is little structure to the film and, after a while, the scenes seem repetitive. Enchanted at first, I started falling asleep after about 45 minutes. Others may enjoy it for its sheer human energy, but as film it is lacking.