User Reviews

Apartheid is something we will first think of when someone mentions South Africa, and probably this will last for generations. African movie makers don't try to change that impression: most movies that get world distribution deal with interracial relations and usually its plot is put during the apartheid years. Even comedies like Leon Schuster's movies use apartheid at least as a background.

*** MAJOR SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH*** It is not hard to compare characters in "After the Rain" and "The Power of One". A young white man who doesn't agree with humiliation of another races, but also can't avoid belonging to his own race, culture and tradition; a young woman in love with him who starts to realize what is the system doing not only to certain groups of people but to the whole country as well, a black man who wants the system to change, but tries to keep a distance to his friends who look for solution in weapons... ***END OF MAJOR SPOILERS***

But while "The Power of One" shows the developing period of apartheid, "After the Rain" deals with its decline. And, as a movie, the former one is a rather linear story covering a few decades, while the latter one – except few short flashbacks and last few minutes – ends only few days after the story begun, and in spite of that it is far from being linear (in style, mood, rate...).

The first part of the movie is a rather bright, simple love story made not very different from usual Hollywood (similar) genre movie. Suddenly, due to circumstances and a very unlucky parallel sequence of events, three main characters gather in the same room and the rest of the movie (till last few minutes) it is a slow psychological drama that could have been written by Tennessee Williams, or even more Eugene O'Neill: an excellent performance, but has nothing common with the first part of the movie. Finally, last few scenes have a completely unnecessary Mandela's speech as sound background making the movie look like a pamphlet: we all know what has happened in RSA, and if someone still believes that apartheid was better, there is no movie that will change his opinion. This is even worse, because it hides two great scenes where a white and a black man meet on the court and in jail. After almost an hour long watching their confused and developing emotions during one night in one room, with a lot of talking (white man) and a lot of silence (black man), now we need only a few dozen seconds with not many words to feel condensed emotions, a consequence of what has happened years ago. The last scene in the classroom is powerful, but slightly polluted by that pamphlet feeling, and too similar to "The Power of One".

"After the Rain" is, as all previous comments mention, a movie version of "Soweto Burning"; but Soweto is neighbor to Johannesburg – why then does the movie take place in Capetown?

Many people could have problems with some of the scenes like brutal ones in army action against rebels, many actionmovielovers wouldn't withstand the slow rhythm of the second part; some people might complain because of the language and sexuality in theater scenes etc. But, though the movie would surely disappoint people who want action, the "disturbing" scenes are not long or frequent enough to make other people give up watching.

So, if you are not too easy to be offended and you can handle a drama with so big changes in rhythm, there is no reason to avoid this movie: it is not likely that it will disappoint you if you know what to expect and agree with that.

I rented this from NETFLIX mainly because I am a fan of its STAR Paul Bettany,

This motion picture was directed & written by Ross Kettle & is an adaptation of his play SOWETO IS BURNING.

Paul portrays a South African raised to manhood during the Aparteid struggles; Louise Lombard (a TV actress) is a beautiful lady in love with Paul.: Ariyon Bakare ( a very good looking & fine South African actor), He is innocently involved with Louise& thus precipitates the enfolding drama.

This 1999 film was made in South Africa & I actually felt I was there watching it ALL. The production was made on a shoestring budget, & thusly we have a tighter film.

The only negative thing I can add is that those who do not have closed captioning may have trouble with the various accents.

My rating is based on seeing this excellent film with Closed Captioning.

Ratings **** (out of 4) 98 points(out of 100) IMDb 10 (out of 10