The Same After 19 Years

DOCUMENTARY FILMS tend to date very badly. Within a few months, if not a few weeks, the subject has either been resolved or relegated to those dim recesses of the memory where old, half-remembered news items occupy otherwise useless brain cells. For some inexplicable reason, save perhaps the innate grayness of the era, films from the '50s seem particularly susceptible to forgetability. In fact, there are only a few exceptions to this bizarre rule, among them Edward Murrow's better interviews and the lesser-known, but still timely film Come Back, Africa. Directed by Lionel Rogosin in 1959, Come Back, Africa is a documentary-drama about apartheid. Filmed secretly in South Africa, much of it in areas banned to whites, and then smuggled out of the country, it is a stunning indictment of the dehuminization imposed by apartheid. Although it is not quite two hours long, the viewer leaves the theater exhausted, moved, and angry.

Shot in black and white, Come Back Africa follows a young black man, Zacharaiah (Zach Mgabi), who leaves his native Zululand when famine forces him to the big city to try to support his wife and two children. Rogosin's camera-work starkly captures the cold hostility of Johannesburg; throughout the film there are shots of black and white workers moving, zombie-like, through the dreary streets of the city. These shots repeat throughout the film, setting a motif of alienation that reinforces the brutal racism depicted through Zach's travails.

First Zach gets a job in the gold mines--dehumanizing experience number one. Soon he loses that job, and in rapid succession he loses a few others--houseboy, gas station attendant, waiter, road crew--when the white employers become displeased with him. These contacts with Afrikaaners and Britishers--who insist on being called "Boss" or something equally demeaning--are typified in this encounter with the shrewish woman who hires, then summarily fires, Zach as her houseboy:

"What's your name, boy?"

"Zachariah, ma'am."

"Zachariah? No, that won't do at all. I'll call you Jack."

Zach's odyssey continues to the horribly dilapidated townships (precursors of Soweto), where he finds friendship but still no steady job. He grows increasingly frustrated; finally, joined by his wife and children, the debilitating pressures of apartheid begin to tell on him. The ending of the film is, of course depressing.

WHAT MAKES Come Back Africa so very remarkable is not the predictable plot line, but several unusual features of its making. First, of course, is the secrecy in which it was made. Rogosin, his crew, and the actors risked their "freedom" to making this film. Second, though none of the actors in the film (save one) was a professional at the time, the performances are by and large excellent. The only professional is Miriam Makeba, who is inserted in the film near the end--breaking up an intriguing political discussion--to sing a few of the songs that would make her famous just two or three years later when Harry Belafonte "discovered" her.

The social and political climate in which the film was made required tremendous intestinal fortitude on the part of Rogosin. Come Back, Africa makes the strongest anti-apartheid statement I have ever seen by letting the horrors of South Africa speak for themselves. For example, the footage of men going to work in the gold mines, or the panoramic shots of the township in which Zachariah finally settles, are memorable. One wonders how the bombed-out townships look today if they looked so god-awful in 1959.

Which brings up the final and most intriguing point about Come Back, Africa. Only the cars and attire of the whites indicate that the year is 1959; otherwise, given the advanced state of affairs in the white-minority regime, all the events described in the film could well have taken place this week. 1959...nineteen years ago. Can that much time have passed since this damning indictment of South Africa was first made? The answer is a melancholy yes, which is a testimony to the power and paranoia of the white regime in South Africa, and to the willingness of the outside world to ignore apartheid. 1959...yet black men and women are still denied their humanity in South Africa. Come Back, Africa unquestionably merits a first or second look; you will be hard-pressed to find a more powerful, relevant film, particularly of the 19-vear-old variety.