| In Search of A Reasonable Man |
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AFRICAN MAN ORIGINAL - in search of a Reasonable Man In the winter of 2000 I had a conversation with an Ethiopian filmmaker about Gavin Hood's movie A Reasonable Man. The filmmaker in question felt that Hood's movie was an insult to black people. He felt that Hood, who is white had no authority to be making a movie that dealt with certain issues that were pertinent to the black community. If I remember his words exactly he said, "The white man is so arrogant that not only does he come and dominate the African continent he also prescribes to the African people his interpretation of their culture". I couldn't help remember a line from the movie by the sangoma played by Nandi Nyembe. She is talking to Sean Raine (the hero of the story played by Gavin Hood):"You live in Africa. You are white. You are cursed." `A Reasonable Man' draws attention to the dialogue that has been going on in African literature since independence. Is Gavin Hood cursed? As a white director in Africa is he arrogantly prescribing to the black majority his authority on their culture? I am always weary of what I call "the white man cometh movies". The Tarzans of this world. Is Gavin Hood's Sean Raine a Tarzan type character? A Reasonable Man is Gavin Hood's first feature film. Based on an actual court case, it tells the story of a young Zulu herd boy, Sipho (Loyiso Gxwala) who is on trial for killing a baby. In his defence he claims he thought he was killing an evil spirit otherwise known as the tikoloshe in popular folklore. The prosecutor, Linde (played by Vusi Kunene) is ready to send him straight to jail and the defence wants him to plead insanity. Gavin Hood's character, Sean Raine doesn't believe that he is insane, he sincerely believes that he was killing an evil spirit. Every society defines itself by its beliefs. My father used to tell me stories of how he would play in the forest and be worried about whether there was a ghost behind every tree. Many people don't walk underneath a ladder. Can these things be put on trial? Is Gavin as writer-director attempting to preach to his black audience that its okay to have that belief in tikoloshe's and that he (in the new guise of Tarzan) will save the young herd boy whose people have turned on him? Sipho's first lawyer is black and she abandons the boy. Sean Raine is the only one who is ready to defend him. What comment is Gavin Hood making by casting Vusi Kunene as the black prosecutor who totally rejects the idea of the African superstitions? Linde (Kunene) is totally disgusted at Sean's insistence that the boy thought he was killing an evil spirit. I would assume that Linde was also raised under the same circumstances as the young boy. He would have also herded cattle, would have also listened to the stories his grand fathers told him by moonlight and would have also bathed in the river. Of course, where he would have differed from young Sipho would be that he went to a University where he was educated and now his educated mind tells him that those beliefs that once his people held as gospel truth are backward. Is Gavin Hood arrogantly preaching that Linde is like most educated black people who cut ties with their hometown in favour of the sip of champagne and suit and tie? In his song Gentleman Fela Kuti says - "I no be gentleman at all. I be African man, original." Is Linde an African man original? Not in Hood's movie. Here he has total disregard for the culture that spawned him. According to Linde Africans can't continue to defend their actions based on superstitions and such other fare. We live in a capitalist society and the sooner we realise it the better. Linde asks Sean "Why are you so keen to keep this country in the grip of the past?" to which Sean replies, "the past is very much a part of the present". If the media is to be believed, most white people in the country want to forget the past and the black people keep on bringing it up. That's a generalisation. I do believe that there are pockets of the white society that have a mental block about the past but I think that it spreads also to the up and coming young blacks as well. I asked a certain Simunye presenter whether he had seen A Long Nights Journey Into Day and he replied that he's more interested in the commercial stuff and proceeded to tell me about the brilliance of Stanley Kuberick's Eyes Wide Shut. Is Gavin Hood deliberately giving his character the voice of the black people presented in a white body? Because I haven't met any white person like Hood's Sean Raine. Someone ready to accept the past with such openness. In this day and age the lines are being blurred so brilliantly that it doesn't really matter what colour you are. Things that have been defined by being colour specific are being turned on their heads for better or for worse. As Charles Barkley, the former basketball star says, "the best golfer in the world is black and the best rapper is white,". But in a society like South Africa where colour is everything, should we really nick pick this movie and scatter our brains about the representation? Isn't the brilliance of any art form in its ability to challenge us? I believe that when South Africa saw A Reasonable Man they missed out on a lot of things. Subtle things that I think make it definitely one of the most important movies to come out of the continent. You see, in A Reasonable Man, Gavin Hood does not play Tarzan. He plays the Devil's advocate. He plays what the Yoruba's call Esu-the trickster God. It is believed that Esu creates the chaos for change to occur. By turning the characters on their heads, Gavin is making us challenge our perceptions of how we view the country. His Sean Raine has been out of the country for a while, living in England. He has returned to be part of the NEW SOUTH AFRICA. Desmond Tutu's RAINBOW NATION. He takes up a case to help a boy only to discover he doesn't know anything about what he is doing. It's like the new government inheriting a monster they have no idea how to run. In a documentary on Patrice Lumumba, a man says "Power is like a car. Independence (for African countries) was like handing to keys to people who couldn't drive". Are our new leaders ready to drive the country? Sean has to dig within himself before he can take the case further. He is forced to investigate his own selfish reasons for taking this case. He tells Judge Wendon (Nigel Hawthorne) that he left the country because he didn't think he should spend six years in jail as a consciencious objector. He was also tired of being called up for military service. One second he is in a law room the next, 200km inside Angola. There is an entire generation of Sean Raine's out there walking around like De Niro's character in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver. Dealing with the nightmares of the war they were fighting in Angola. How many of our bank manager's today sport smiles but only a few years ago were blasting the hell out of the 'enemy' in Angola? How many of them are dealing with that inner rage? When will they come out and scream from the roof tops "We need help?" Maybe they don't. Maybe the culture of silence is the best bet. However Gavin Hood brings it out in the open. Sean wants to understand, like most people in this country should be. Sean has questions and seeks answers. Most importantly Sean seeks redemption for his crimes. Not redemption from apartheid but redemption for shooting a young black boy in Angola because he thought the boy was the 'enemy'. He has to go to the sangoma to cleanse himself. Over a lovely remix of TKZee's Palafala, Sean drives deep into the township to purge his soul of his guilt. "You live in Africa. You are white. You are cursed." The sangoma talks about removing the snake from his body. I am sure Gavin is not saying everyone should march to a sangoma and purge themselves, however his character is at least pro-active. As a film, A Reasonable Man makes its points without resorting to sledgehammer tactics. I have to disagree with my Ethiopian friend. I don't find A Reasonable Man arrogant at all. I find it a very stimulating film and one that should have received more attention than it did. It highlights the plight of the new African debate. It draws attention to the dialogue that has been going on in African literature since independence. The point at which the black man went to England and returned whiter than the white man. In Soyinka's Death And The Kings Horseman, a young Yoruba boy returns to bury his father. It is the tradition that when the King dies, his horseman dies with him. In this case however the regional British governor refuses to carry out the tradition and has the King's horseman imprisoned so that the ceremony does not go on. The ensuing dialogue that goes on in the play is about the sacrifice of tradition at the expense of modernism. Because I am an educated reasonable man, does that mean that when I go back to my village I won't kneel down and greet my grandmother? In Kwesi Brew's poem Lest We Should Be the Last this dialogue is continued. The point at which the two cultures (Western and African) met and what is the way forward? The poem follows the story of a group of Africans who after dumping their traditional religion are going to meet the missionaries hoping that "Our hunger would be banished/ And our thirst assuaged" only to find that when they reach the Missionaries "Now we have come to you/And are amazed to find/Those you have love and respected/Mock you to your face." Question one: Is Gavin Hood a reasonable man? Vusi Kunene's Linde tells us that "reasonable people don't believe in ghosts and goblins. Reasonable people don't kill". Gavin Hood's Sean Raine's asks "Who in a multicultural society is a reasonable man?" Gavin Hood is a reasonable man. His question is one of concern, not one of arrogance. Who indeed in a multi cultural society like ours is a reasonable man? Me? You? Or her? |
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