The Forgiven
Drama. With Forest Whitaker, Eric Bana and Morné Visser. Director: Roland Joffé. 18LPV.
As the title suggests, this film set in SA is about the power of forgiveness – but don’t expect Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013) or Invictus (2009). Based on Michael Ashton’s play The Archbishop and the Antichrist, this movie is raw with violence and especially language.
It’s about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of which Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu (Whitaker) was the chairman. He gets a letter from the fictional Piet Blomfeld (Bana), a former member of the Vlakplaas death squad, which brutally murdered black South Africans during the dying days of Apartheid.
In it Blomfeld asks for amnesty for what he did because it was politically motivated. What unfolds is a shocking tale based on real cases that came before the TRC and the effect it had on ordinary South Africans.
It’s a difficult film to sit through but the rays of hope it offers, especially at the end, cut clean through the detestable events of the past to get to the truth. All the Afrikaans swear words you can think of and even the hated k-word are flung at the audience, but the honesty of it takes your breath away – so steel yourself.
Whitaker and Bana give tour de force performances. Whitaker gets Tutu’s distinctive laugh right as well as his warmth and peacemaking nature, while Bana’s Afrikaans accent is impeccable and he instils his character with a tangible aggression.
Two local actors also shine in their roles: Visser (who deserves more recognition) as policeman Hansi Coetzee, and a heartrending Thandi Makhubele as Mrs Morobe, who has to forgive and reconcile in front of the commission. – PIETER VAN ZYL