A Dry White Season: Movie Description

Confronting Apartheid in South Africa, the 1970s A Dry White Season (1989)

By the 1970s, South Africa’s system of racial segregation, known as apartheid, had been operating for 30 years to protect the white minority political leadership of Afrikaners, while condemning the black majority to political disqualification and the lowest economic levels. But in June 1976, black students organized non-violent protests against a government plan to change their instruction from the English language to Afrikaans (the Dutch-derived language of the leadership).

The government met the protests with violent repression that lasted for months, claiming over 1,000 killed by police, over 5,000 seriously injured, more than 21,000 charged with crimes related to the demonstrations, and hundreds detained without being charged or brought to trial.

A Dry White Season begins just before that moment of crisis. Ben Du Toit (played by Donald Sutherland), an Afrikaner schoolteacher, learns that Jonathan, the son of his black gardener Gordon Ngubene (Winston Ntshona)--a promising boy whose tuition Ben has been partly paying--was arrested and severely caned by the police without a trial. Gordon pleads with Ben to intervene by finding a lawyer so the youth will not have a police record. Ben replies without much thought: “There’s nothing to be done.”

The scene cuts to the Ngubene home in a separate black township. Gordon admonishes his son: “No demonstrations.” Jonathan replies: “They don’t want us to be really educated. If we learn in Afrikaans we have no future.”

Jonathan then participates in the large Soweto protest march as hundreds carry placards demanding equal education. After demanding that they disperse, armed police fire teargas and rifles into the crowd in a brutal display of power. Jonathan is arrested. His father searches the police lists, hospitals, and morgues, but cannot find his son.

Gordon asks Ben for assistance. Ben contacts a lawyer, who eventually informs them that Jonathan was killed in the riot. Ben is surprised, but Gordon cannot believe the report. Determined to find the body of his son, or at least the circumstances of the boy’s death, he seeks witnesses who may have seen him.

With the aid of a black lawyer who takes depositions, Gordon speaks to a black janitor who works at Security police headquarters in John Foster Square, who remembers seeing Jonathan alive. With movie flashbacks, one youth, arrested with Jonathan but released, describes the tortures he witnessed. Gordon’s investigations come to an abrupt end when Security police arrest him and seize the depositions.

Now Gordon’s wife, Emily (Thoko Ntshinga), begs Ben to intercede with the police on behalf of his gardener. In a tense interview with Security officials, including Capt. Stolz (Jurgen Prochnow), Ben not only fails to get answers, but he also becomes the object of the police inquiry as they question his motives. The meeting ends on a pleasant note, when the police permit Emily to bring changes of clothes to her husband.

The film cuts to a torture session as police ask Gordon about the depositions he obtained. Meanwhile, as Ben is about to join his family at dinner, Emily arrives, informing him that in a pocket of Gordon’s clothes, she has found his broken teeth. Ben again contacts the lawyer, but his own family is angered at this minor involvement, confident that Security would not detain an innocent man.

The family scene is interrupted again by the arrival of Gordon’s friend, Stanley (Zakes Mokae), who tells Ben that Gordon is dead, reportedly a suicide at the John Foster Square detention center. Distraught at the news, Ben wants to view the body, even at the risk of driving with Stanley to the black township, where as a white man his life may be threatened. While there, Ben meets the English journalist, Melanie Bruwer (Susan Sarandon), who writes about the black liberation movement.

At Emily’s request, Ben visits the lawyer, Ian McKenzie (Marlon Brando) to press for an inquest. McKenzie suggests the effort is futile. But Ben is unwilling to stop, admitting that his earlier “neglect” may have contributed to the deaths of Jonathan and Gordon. He mentions McKenzie’s skill at gaining other legal victories for blacks. But the lawyer replies, “Every time I’ve won a case, they’ve simply changed the law.”

The court hearing shows the unfairness of the legal system. One witness is in jail and cannot testify. Another implicates Capt. Stolz and is promptly dragged away by police. Facing photographs of tortured bodies, the police justify the fight against “terrorists and communists.” Angry black observers are expelled from the courtroom. The judge dismisses the case against the government.

As black protesters outside chant “Justice!” news photographers catch Ben hugging Emily. The police then attack the demonstrators. Melanie, the reporter, whisks Ben to safety. “I’ve been too naïve too long,” Ben admits. She replies, “Welcome to South Africa.”

The publication of the news photo showing Ben hugging Emily outrages Ben’s colleagues and family. When his wife begs Ben to abandon the cause, he responds, “It can never go back to the way it was.” She demands that he choose sides, “choose your people.” Ben answers, “I have to choose the truth.”

As Ben continues to seek evidence about Gordon’s death, the police raid his house and confiscate personal letters. They question his son at school, prompting classmates to beat him up. The police order Emily’s eviction to Zululand, a segregated black “homeland.” The principal of Ben’s school dismisses him and expels his son.

As Ben’s hostile family sits for Christmas dinner, Stanley arrives drunk and tells him that Emily is dead, beaten to death by police for resisting the removal of her children to Zululand. Ben’s wife is infuriated by the vulgar interruption and leaves the house.

Ben continues his lonely efforts to reveal the truth. Despite police threats, he gives Melanie documents to publish in the newspaper. His daughter snitches to the police and Ben’s house is bombed. When Melanie journeys to Zambia to interview a witness, the police bar her reentry to South Africa and deport her to London.

Ben persists. Decoying his daughter into thinking she is betraying his secrets to the police, Ben has his son deliver material to the English newspaper. Capt. Stolz retaliates by driving over Ben as he crosses the street. The next day, Stanley stalks the officer, flashing back to all the violence that has occurred, and in the movie’s final scene, shoots the policeman.

The next day’s headlines reveal “Special Branch Exposed; Affadavits Link High Ranking Officers to Two Deaths; Government Denies Charges.” A smaller headline reads: “History teacher who supplied testimony victim of hit and run.”

The movie ends with a textual statement, dated 1989, asserting that South Africa “continues to ban, imprison, torture, and murder” those who oppose apartheid. The film is dedicated “to those who carry on the fight for a free and democratic South Africa.”

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