Rating: R
Genre:
Drama
Release Date: 05/20/2008
SubTitles: Espanol
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD2/DD5.1
Run Time: 118 Minutes
Distributor/Studio: Image Entertainment
Bille August's inspirational
docudrama Goodbye Bafana begins in 1968, with South Africa buried neck-deep in the horrors of apartheid and
Nelson Mandela (
Dennis Haysbert) - then an underground leader of the African National Congress - imprisoned on Robben Island for sedition. As the story opens, the native African population of the country - 25,000,000 in number - buckles beneath the crippling weight of the racist white minority, who control the Nationalist Party Government. The film follows the spiritual and psychological journey of
James Gregory (
Joseph Fiennes), a Caucasian Afrikaner who came of age on a farm in the Transkei and initially views all blacks as subhuman.
Gregory also speaks
Mandela's native language of Xhosa with perfect fluency, which makes him an ideal candidate to serve as warden of the Robben Island Prison and eavesdrop on
Mandela and his inmates. What he fails to anticipate is the most unlikely and special of friendships (one of history's greatest) that burgeons between himself and
Mandela - and helps him evolve from a narrow-minded bigot with limited self-awareness to a sensitive, humane critic of social injustice with a heightened awareness of mankind's ill treatment of one another and a genuine level of love for his fellow man. As the friendship between
Gregory and
Mandela grows and matures, it symbolizes Africa's transition from the oppressiveness of Apartheid to the freedom of multi-racial democracy.
~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide