Goodbye Bafana Review

Goodbye Bafana Review

1. In general, what did you like and dislike about the film?

I thought the film was entertaining, but considering the general doubt that exists about Gregory’s version of the facts, I have to admit that I watched it with a previously generated disbelief. Gregory appears as an honorable, brave guard who defied his superiors in a first discrete but later public support for his true friend, Mandela. I didn’t really buy it. After all, The Guardian classified it as a true “historical negligence” because of the contradictions and lack of substance of many of its scenes (https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/may/10/goodbye-bafana-nelson-mandela).

I liked that the film showed a little more about some native customs, like the game with sticks. The fact that they included this and used it to depict Gregory’s first-hand experience of native Africans’ culture was fun.

It also shows the ignorance of the white people who were pro-Apartheid, such as the guard’s, who didn’t even know what The Freedom Charter actually contained, and believed the myth that it was a document defending black domination over whites, instead of the pro-equality declaration it actually was.

Also, no offense, but the kid who played Gregory as a child showed some really bad acting, for which I blame the director. It’s impossible that the scene in which he says goodbye to his African friend couldn’t have been done again with better direction.

2. Who was the character you liked the most and the character you liked the least in the film? Why?

I liked the character of Gregory’s daughter when she was little, who didn’t understand the brutal violence with which the local police treated African people, like the mother who was aggressively separated from her baby.

I didn’t really like Gregory’s character, but because I didn’t really trust his version even before watching the film. His constant victimization and self-martyrization was quite annoying. But while watching it, I also disliked the character of his prison colleague, who censored letters at the first facility with him, and Gloria when she explained to her daughter that police violence towards black people and their separation from whites was “God’s way”, because she reminded me of people who still think this way in 2019 and raise their kids “educating” them this way.

3. How do the versions of James Gregory, Nelson Mandela, and Winnie Mandela compare between  Goodbye Bafana and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom?

James Gregory was barely shown in the first film, while he’s the main character and basically the hero of the second one. I personally think that making a movie about the “amazing and empathetic” white guard who befriended Mandela and attempted to “resist” the system’s racism and violence, is almost disrespectful. Considering the African people’s real struggle, it’s hard to accept that millions of dollars would go to show the “struggle” of a single white male against the cruel white system. But it’s also very typical of Hollywood. So I prefer the unimportant Gregory shown in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

Something similar happened with Mandela’s character: while the first movie has him at the center of the whole plot, the second one makes him instrumental to show Gregory’s “enlightenment, sensibility and integrity”. So the first Mandela appears to be a deeper, more detailed and more important illustration of the real figure, while the second Mandela is reduced to a secondary role.

Finally, Winnie by Naomie Harris is a strong, defiant and very human character. Faith Ndukwana’s Winnie didn’t quite leave much space to actually get to know the character (as a movie character of course, I’m not saying that the first movie necessarily shows us a real, accurate and flawless portrait of the real Winnie). I liked the relevance and time that the first movie dedicated to her as a main and complex piece in the fight against Apartheid, whereas the second one, since it focuses mainly in Gregory, doesn’t really include her in the story as much.