Long Night's Journey Into Day

After South Africa's racial apartheid system collapsed, family members of victims, both black and white, demanded disclosure and justice. As a way of promoting national healing while heading off a brutal round of reprisals, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was born, inviting people of all races who might have committed crimes supporting or opposing apartheid to apply for amnesty after admitting their acts and facing their victims. Part truth commission, part national theater, the TRC travels through the townships, seeking catharsis and hoping to reveal the past to ensure a more peaceful future. Winner of the Best Documentary award at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, Long Night's Journey Into Day examines four applications for amnesty, vividly demonstrating that the road to national unity will be rocky indeed. The opening case involves the well publicized revenge murder of American anti-apartheid activist and student Amy Biehl, slain by blacks during a race riot; Biehl's grieving parents have come to South Africa to support the murderers' application as the best way to move forward and honor their daughter. In the second case, after a white policeman has his conscience pricked by viewing Mississippi Burning (a film which depicts the police slaying of three civil rights workers in the '60s), he comes forward to ask forgiveness for his part in the horrific murders of several black activists (the wife of one victim struggles, but finds herself not yet ready to forgive). The third case, centered around a liberation activist who admits his part in a terrorist bar bombing that killed several white women, raises the troubling question of whether there are "innocent" victims in a fight to overthrow a corrupt, dehumanizing regime in which whites were the beneficiaries. The last and most memorable case involves a black officer--who went undercover, set up, and then betrayed his countrymen--asking to meet with the mothers and widows of the men he helped murder. Narrated by Helen Mirren, with music by Lebo M, this graphic, unflinching look at the tentative first steps South Africa has taken out of her nightmarish past is highly recommended for academic, public, and church libraries. Aud: C, P. Editor's Choice. (S. Rees)