You don't have to know about apartheid for this movie to touch a nerve. And for anyone who has an inkling of what apartheid in South Africa was like then this movie will smash that nerve. The extreme oppression was not unlike the Jim Crow south and in some ways it was worse.
Bopha, the title of the movie, is a Zulu word that means arrest. Until 1994 in South Africa the Black South Africans could be arrested for almost anything. The Afrikaaners (white South Africans), who were mostly Dutch, wanted to totally control the natives. One such way was to make Afrikaans the national language. The youth of South Africa saw that as another means of oppression therefore many opposed learning the language.
"Bopha!" details this small bit of the long tumultuous history between South Africans and Afrikaaners. Micah (Danny Glover) is the police sergeant in charge of enforcing the extremely oppressive and repressive rules of the government while he is also a Black South African. The story is complicated more by his son not wanting to follow in his father's footsteps which makes him an enemy of the state.
This movie is so jarring it shakes the core. At one point I had to pause the movie just to gather myself. I've read enough about apartheid South Africa to know that what I was viewing was only a fraction of what the South Africans suffered, yet that fraction was enough to bring me to tears. "Bopha!" is a very powerful and moving movie and I can't believe it had eluded me so long.
Bopha, the title of the movie, is a Zulu word that means arrest. Until 1994 in South Africa the Black South Africans could be arrested for almost anything. The Afrikaaners (white South Africans), who were mostly Dutch, wanted to totally control the natives. One such way was to make Afrikaans the national language. The youth of South Africa saw that as another means of oppression therefore many opposed learning the language.
"Bopha!" details this small bit of the long tumultuous history between South Africans and Afrikaaners. Micah (Danny Glover) is the police sergeant in charge of enforcing the extremely oppressive and repressive rules of the government while he is also a Black South African. The story is complicated more by his son not wanting to follow in his father's footsteps which makes him an enemy of the state.
This movie is so jarring it shakes the core. At one point I had to pause the movie just to gather myself. I've read enough about apartheid South Africa to know that what I was viewing was only a fraction of what the South Africans suffered, yet that fraction was enough to bring me to tears. "Bopha!" is a very powerful and moving movie and I can't believe it had eluded me so long.