It would be easy to dismiss the late John Berry’s cinematic adaptation of Athol Fugard’s play Boesman and Lena; those American accents and their perfect white teeth; the fact that Danny Glover in no way resembles anything approaching a San-Bushman or a “Hotnot”; the geographical problem of talking Eastern Cape when we’re clearly in the Western Cape; but that would be missing quite a few points.
Firstly, as a play that is neither funny nor tense but more like an existential treatise for Flatties (as opposed to Bergies) it is not very good film material to begin with. Secondly, seen from a non-American point of view it is quite impressive that a film with international stars, French finance and local input can tell a tale of such desperate dispossession.
Thirdly, we make ourselves as guilty of that coiled, emasculated rage of Boesman, which Berry and Glover fail to capture, if all we can do is damn the piece without turning it to local advantage; any number of local actors could do perfect dubs into the original vernacular; the next obvious problems are local promotion and distribution.
And lastly, the film’s mere existence begs a question: why have none of our hotshot local producers given birth to a film or even TV series in which local literary works are adapted? We do, after all, have some of the best writers in the world. Is it because our local geniuses only know how to make money but not how to make it from progressive ideas?
John Berry was a refugee from McCarthyism and left the United States because of it, and if his last film is not a masterpiece, then it certainly leaves something of value behind. Angela Bassett’s performance still manages to cut through layers of local and international bullshit to convey the essence of an abused woman wronged, angered and moved to self-possession.