Reading Affect in Post-Apartheid Literature by Mark Libin

Author:Mark Libin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030559779
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Night and Day

As Bennett contends, Frances Reid and Deborah Hoffmann’s documentary, Long Night’s Journey into Day presents an apparently unproblematic perspective on the TRC amnesty hearings, particularly when contrasted with Ubu and the Truth Commission. Bennett, setting up a stark evaluative dichotomy between the two productions, ultimately concludes that Long Night’s Journey into Day represents “crude empathy”, which she defines as a “simplistic and sentimental” assimilation of the trauma of the other into the self. As a result of this, Bennett concludes that the audience mistakes solipsism for empathy since, “anything beyond the audience’s immediate experience remains beyond comprehension”.46 The structure of the documentary, with its heavy reliance on talking head interviews with victims, perpetrators, as well as TRC commissioners and lawyers, lends credence to Bennett’s assessment that Reid and Hoffmann’s objective is to create the space for a face-to-face encounter between viewer and interviewee. In so doing, the filmmakers organize their portrayal of the amnesty hearings in such an order so as to instil meaning and impose narrative closure upon the traumatic episodes upon which they focus.

The film’s title, of course, is indicative of its ideological trajectory: the viewer is meant to “journey”, along with the country itself, into the new “day”. As opposed to the ironic sun that provides the final image of Ubu and the Truth Commission, the daylight that will dispel the “long night” of South Africa’s traumatic past is here presented as inevitable as it is welcome. The title itself references chronological time, as night, no matter how long it might seem to last, is unfailingly followed by day.47

The film leads the viewer through a narrative journey into understanding the unique and laudable character of the TRC amnesty hearings, and into realizing how ubuntu is possible as a result of perpetrators coming forward with genuine repentance in their hearts. That is not to say that each of the four cases selected for the documentary concludes in a joyful reconciliation. Rather, as viewers “journey” from one segment of the film to the next, they are meant to experience distinctly different responses to various perpetrators. The first segment of the film deals with the black youth applying for amnesty for the murder of American Fulbright student Amy Biehl, the case being one of the most famous examples of reconciliation in the history of the TRC. The second segment, on the murder of the Cradock Four, focuses on the more ambiguous case of former policeman Eric Taylor, who claims to have changed his mind about apartheid after watching the film Mississippi Burning, and attempts to apologize to the widows of the men he murdered. The third segment documents the amnesty hearing of Robert McBride, a former MK guerilla who killed three white civilians when he bombed a pub in Durban, but closely scrutinizes Sharon Welgemoed, the unforgiving sister of one of the women killed. The final segment focuses on former police officer, Thapelo Mbelo, when he meets with the widows of the Guguletu Seven and asks them directly for forgiveness for his role in their husbands’ murders.

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