Sarafina!

A musical about apartheid!? Does this really sound like a successful premise? Still, I wanted this movie to be good, to be something that spread joy, spread fury, spread the word. And to a certain extent, it does. But the combination of all that singing and dancing with such weighty subject matter, causes Sarafina! to shoot itself in the foot. Adapted from the much-ballyhooed stage play, the movie physically opens up this South African story about the political resistance of young schoolchildren during the Soweto riots of 1976. At center stage is the character of Sarafina (Khumalo -- who here makes an impressive screen debut following her creation of the character on Broadway). Sarafina lives in the segregated Soweto squalor and talks to her framed picture of Nelson Mandela about her hopes and dreams of becoming a famous star. The film's opening song and dance number has her sashaying through a fantasy that features the letters of the word Soweto spelled out across the African hillside like the famous Hollywood sign and an imagined acceptance of her coveted Oscar. The mood is joyous and celebratory, the standard set-up for another “nothing can stop me now” young hoofer story. Added to that is the star power of Goldberg as the history/music teacher who teaches her students forbidden lessons and inspires them to take pride in their heritage and history. (One would have thought, however, that Goldberg's experience with Clara's Heart would have taught her the pitfalls of working in foreign accents.) Then, just when we've become caught up in the spirit of hope and liberating struggle, the horrifying riots break out in Soweto. But the effect is the same as if another choreographed dance number had broken loose. Where once we had Fame, South African-style, with schoolchildren singing and dancing in the streets, now we're suddenly dropped into the horror of race warfare with its accompanying death, torture and destruction. Almost by definition, the world of the musical is a world characterized by artifice. It resembles the real world but it is not the real world. By placing the very real struggle for human rights within the musical's borders, it threatens to denature the strife and torture and present them as wholly artificial constructs. This is Sarafina's irreconcilable conflict. Also the movie suffers from its mid-Seventies setting in which Nelson Mandela's continued imprisonment is an essential narrative element. It makes it feel dated and the closing credits informing us that Mandela has since been released from jail will probably not come as big news to anyone already present in the audience. I'm a firm believer in the old wisdom of not wanting to be part of any revolution that doesn'tallow you to dance, but Sarafina! trips up badly when it tries to do both simultaneously.