In the late 1990s, the new South African government set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in order to reveal what actually happened under the former apartheid regime. To that end, the Committee on Amnesty was formed to allow those who committed atrocities for "political reasons" to come forward and explain their crimes in exchange for amnesty, and at these committee meetings, victims were allowed to confront their tormentors face to face.
This has the makings of an extraordinary story, but "In My Country" completely fumbles the subject matter. The film pushes one of the most interesting forgiveness experiments in world history into the background in order to focus on what is undoubtedly among the stalest love affairs ever filmed.
Afrikaan reporter Anna (Juliette Binoche) leaves her domestic paradise in white suburban South Africa to cover the Amnesty commission. There, she meets Langston (Samuel L. Jackson), a black American reporter for the Washington Post. Langston feels that all whites should share in guilt over apartheid since they all benefited from it and he believes that the new South African government should not be so quick to forgive. Anna believes wholeheartedly in the commission and feels that forgiveness is of central importance. "We can't just get on a plane and leave," she says of her Afrikaan people at one point. "We have to learn how to live together."
The two reporters eventually come into contact with the most extreme horrors of apartheid. The obstinate Langston we meet at the beginning of the movie softens and nave idealist Anna eventually becomes a somewhat jaded chain-smoker. All the while, the intensity and emotion tied to the committee meetings draws the pair closer together, ultimately leading to an affair.
At least, that's how it's supposed to go. However, it would be a vast understatement to say that this movie lacks emotional precision. Binoche volleys between pathetic flirting and extreme emotional distress like a light switch, in a performance that is just as plastic.
Jackson is somewhat better as a spiritually itinerant man who feels he has no country. He says, "In America, if you're black, everything tells you that you don't belong." Still, Jackson is only adequate in a role that feels like it could have been so much more substantial.
Binoche and Jackson certainly don't do anything to save this movie, but the most egregious failure of "In My Country" lies in John Boorman's incompetent direction. The movie runs like a play where everyone misses their cues and manages to either emote too much or too little. The result is a baffling and disjointed cinematic experience that lumbers its way toward its not-too-shocking ending.
The only thing that could possibly remain with audience members after watching this movie are the images of extreme violence that Anna and Langston uncover as they descend into the depths of apartheid's legacy. Yet the audience's reaction to the abandoned torture chambers and recently uncovered skeletons that the duo uncovers has nothing to do with good filmmaking or the facile musings the script plugs into the reporters' mouths. This potency emerges from the sense that this actually happened and will remain another irrevocable and sordid part of human history. Even the worst movie couldn't have diminished the inherent gravity of the situation that occurred.
"In My Country" wastes its enormous potential; the moviemakers seem more interested in making the audience admire them for their bleeding hearts rather than mining the profundity of the subject matter. Instead of tackling the nature of guilt or the origins of barbarous cruelty, Boorman treats the characters as monoliths onto which he can project his own simplistic ideas of what a moral reporter, a shame-ridden foot soldier and a remorseless war criminal should be like. In an interview with Langston, Colonel De Jager (Brendan Gleeson), a fictional representative of apartheid's sadistic torturers, offers that "[torturing] is better than sex."
In another scene, Langston tries to strangle De Jager after the general makes a particularly offensive remark. It's all been done before and in so many better ways. Yawn.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission fully displayed the human capacity for depravity and subsequently, the human capacity for forgiveness. The story is utterly fascinating, and it needs to be told. Therefore, it's a pity that this particular attempt ends up being so abysmal. The events merit a better portrayal, and hopefully, a film will one day succeed where this movie does not.