A WORLD APART (53)

Directed by: Chris Menges (1988)

Starring: Barbara Hershey, Jodhi May, David Suchet

The Pitch: In 60s South Africa, a (white) fighter against apartheid neglects her 13-year-old daughter for the sake of the Cause.

Theo Sez: Second viewing (the first on video) for a film I didn't think very much of in 1988. Slightly more effective this time round, partly because its intimate family drama is more suited to the small screen, partly because one is more able to appreciate the range of May's lovely performance - especially her innocent openness in the early scenes - knowing the film as a whole. Yet the faults remain - a didactic contrivance and a lack of subtlety. I don't believe it when someone accidentally drops an ANC armband so the significance of the colours can be explained, and I wince - for all the wrong reasons - when the film has a rich white hostess tell the (black) servants to hurry up with the food because "I've got people starving out there". The standard criticism of movies on racial themes made by white film-makers is that they view things through the eyes of whites, relegating the black characters to the background - yet, in fact, this could actually have stood even less of its black characters (not least because "characters" is the wrong word). It's very strong on the mother- daughter relationship, and the daughter's gradual awakening to the ways of the world, but every time it focuses on "the struggle" its emotional complexities are drowned out by the clarion call of righteous indignation.