Mugabe And The White African

A stunning Documentary, a proverbial rocket up the backside for the viewer. The finest documentary seen for a long time, and documentaries generally have to be a high quality to be available on the big screen at all.
A beautifully paced and managed narrative is built around firstly the court case for the rights of our subjects to keep ownership of their land. The shocking turns taken were, in the most tasteless way ever, a boon for the drama of the piece, but the beautiful presentation even before this for a fine production from beginning to end.
The real success is that we study peoiple, real humans, not some floating 'idea' above them. The consideration of our white subjects personalised their heroism, gave an understanding of their immense stubborness that the viewer sympathised to such an extent with them to call it nearly foolhardiness.
But this isn't a one sided heroes/villains study. It's people, and it's people. It is recognised that great colonial injustices haunt the present of Zimbabwe. We are shown how Mugabe (the anger engendered is visceral, we want to kick inanimate objects on the way out)isn't just a man trying to, in a horrendous way, right vast wrongs, but his policies have frankly little to do with anything but corrupt personal gain. The film though so considers the subjects so much to ask us to consider the crucial, but perhaps, impossible maxim; hate the crime, not the criminal (the shots of the Mugabe's legal team test the patience of the strongest).
A great film, garlanded with not nearly enough awards, it makes the viewer not only want to, but need to, stand up, do something. As a film, the narrative, characterisation, and use of the Zimbabwean landscape is compelling. As a political document, it stands as a commandment to responsibility.