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December 2006
FORGIVENESS |
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by Kam Williams FORGIVENESS
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More Truth than Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid Revenge Flick Although the couple is still grieving, they entertain their son’s killer in their home. We learn that Daniel’s nearly-mute mother, Magda (Denise Newman), hasn’t left the house in the three years since his death, and that his embarrassed father, Hendrik (Zane Meas), is in denial about his son’s having joining the revolution. After apologizing awkwardly, the contrite assassin selfishly insists on relating the gory details of Daniel’s final hours on Earth, presumably because he still has not achieved any sense of catharsis. This doesn’t sit well with his brother, Ernest (Christo Davids), who proceeds to crack a pot over Coetzee’s cranium. Then, when the stranger announces his plans to leave
town, another sibling, sister, Sannie (Quanita Adams), intervenes, suggesting that he spend the night because his continued presence would help her parents to recover.
But what Coetzee doesn’t know is that Sannie has a hidden agenda, for she has secretly already summoned some of her brother’s former ANC comrades to exact a measure of revenge. And the question of whether they will arrive in time supplies the palpable tension permeating Forgiveness, a riveting drama which presents a plausible picture of a South Africa where black-white relations remain edgy in spite of the blanket amnesty conferred by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
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