MOVIE REVIEW: "Skin"

 

Beige World editor in chief David Burnett gives his review of the independent film Skin, starring Sophie Okonedo, Sam Neill, and Alice Krige.

 

David Burnett, Beige World Editor In Chief:

On Sunday, November 16th, I attended a screening of Skin, an independent film directed by Anthony Fabian.  This film was one of several featured at this year's St. Louis International Film Festival (November 13th - November 23rd).

Skin is based on the true story of Sandra Laing, a biracial girl born to parents Abraham and Sannie Laing, both of whom are white Afrikaners, and is set in South Africa during the apartheid era.  Sandra is biracial because of what's known in genetics as a throwback, an anomaly in which the black genes in her parents' ancestry never manifested until she was born.  Nevertheless, Abraham (Sam Neill) and Sannie (Alice Krige) raise Sandra as a white girl.

The young Sandra (Ella Ramangwane) is tormented in school by her classmates, the teachers, and the principal, because of her appearance.  Consequently, the government classifies her as Coloured (the South African term for multiracial), and she's expelled from school.

Undaunted, her father goes to the highest court in the land to have her declared as a white person - which was widely publicized in the press at the time, during the late '60s - but is unsuccessful.  However, later, during Sandra's adolescence, a change in South Africa's racial classification law allows children to be classified as the same race as their parents.  In the eyes of the law, Sandra was now a white person.

Nevertheless, as a teenager, Sandra (Sophie Okonedo) can never relate to white society because of her appearance, and ultimately starts sneaking off to go to the black townships of South Africa to be among those who look more like her.

She falls in love with a black man, Petrus (Tony Kgoroge), much to the dismay of her parents, especially her father Abraham.  She elopes with Petrus to Swaziland, and her father has them arrested and sent to prison.  After her imprisonment, she refuses to leave Petrus and return home with her parents.  Abraham disowns her, and tells her she can never come back, much to the dismay of her mother Sannie.

From this point on, Sandra lives as a black person in the townships of South Africa, with all the challenges associated with it during the apartheid era.  However, over the years, she never forgets about her parents, and always secretly hopes for a reunion.

Years later, when she hears about her father's death, she goes on a mission to reunite with her mother, navigating through government bureaucracy to ultimately find her convalescing in a nursing home after a series of strokes.  Their reunion is a joyful one, and is a testament to forgiveness and reconciliation.

There are two poignant scenes in Skin.  In one scene, Abraham applies skin lightening creme to young Sandra's face.  In another, young Sandra overhears her mother and older brother Leon (Hannes Brummer) discussing how Sandra's appearance has caused so many problems.  Upon hearing this, Sandra goes into the bathroom, mixes various household cleaning products into a bowl, and applies the concoction to her skin in an attempt to lighten it.  But all she does is cause severe burns to her face and arms.  These images of self-hatred were especially striking.

Sophie Okonedo - most known for her roles in Hotel Rwanda and The Secret Life of Bees - delivers an exceptional performance as the elder Sandra.  Through clever use of her body language, she successfully communicates Sandra's insecurity about where she truly belongs in the world.  At the same time, she convincingly exudes the inner drive and determination to reconcile and make peace with her mother - a trait that, ironically, Sandra inherited from her father Abraham, the man who drove her away.  His favorite saying was "Never give up."

Anthony Fabian's choice to portray the young Sandra, Ella Ramangwane, was a stroke of genius.  She bears a striking resemblance to the actual Sandra as a child, and she did a wonderful job in the film as well.

The music score, coupled with the sights and sounds of the South African countryside and the black townships, beautifully complement the film, which was shot entirely in Johannesburg.  As you watch it on the big screen, you feel as though you're actually there.

As a Beige person myself, I naturally tried to imagine, as I watched the film, what it would be like to live under such stressful and inhumane conditions, trying to find my place in the world, and, yet, still possess the capacity to forgive.  Sandra's story is truly a triumph of the human spirit.

Anthony Fabian sums up the essence of Skin very well:  "Skin is a tale of mythic proportions, which tackles the eternal human question:  who am I, and where do I belong?"

Among the many independent films out there, Skin is definitely a hidden gem.  If it comes to your town, DON'T miss it.

On another note, I'd like to thank Cinema St. Louis and the St. Louis International Film Festival for bringing Skin to St. Louis.  Good job.

For those of you who have seen Skin, feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment.

Official Skin Web site:  http://www.skinthemovie.net
Elysian Films Web site:  http://www.elysianfilms.com  
Cinema St. Louis Web site:  http://www.cinemastlouis.org

Comments

[Hélène Muddiman]

Thank you, David, for your kind words about the film 'Skin' and the score, which I composed. Anthony Fabian (the Director) and I went to enormous efforts to record the music in South Africa and around the world using musicians against the black/white stereo types, so we had black string players and white percussionists etc.... I was particularly excited to work with Miriam Stockley who is a white woman who sang the black male sounding vocals!!! This was a challenge in keeping with the message from the movie! :-) Thank you for all your support, we need more people, like you, who will champion it's cause and then hopefully it will be in cinemas soon. It has taken 7 years to get this far.... 'Never Give Up!'...

Hélène Muddiman

[David Burnett]

Helene, thanks so much for responding. You did a MAGNIFICENT job with the music score.

I commend everyone involved in the project for a job well done. :)

[kay]

i have just watched the film "skin" and it touched me so much. The scenes where sandra was beaten in front of her classmates and when she tried to lighten her skin made me cry. I have a biracial daughter and it really touched me how that poor girl must have felt. A truly wonderful film and one of my favourites.

[zenkosi zulu]

A touching movie.
I just came back from seeing it here in Seattle. I too was teary eyed a few times when watching it. It is hard to watch film that is non-fiction...knowing that what you see probably happened in the same way.

I was in my teens (in South Africa) when we read about the Laings. Because of Apartheid and the animosity between the races, we laughed when we heard what those Afrikaners were going through, not once thinking about how the little girl was suffering at school. We just thought the parents were "bad people" and deserved what they were going through.
Makes me shudder when I think about it all these decades later. I know I did not know better, was young, that the messed up country made me do it,etc... but I sure feel some shame today for not thinking about Sandra.

I understand she does well after all these years with her large family of kids and grandkids.
I rejoice.

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Oh yes David, you did a "swell" job, its just a pity nobody speaks out for the other side, like more than 2000 white farmers being murdered after "peace" was negotiated...

I never voted for the Nat government and yet we are killed cause we are white.

Maybe some day someone will after the genocide has been completed.

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What a great movie !!! maybe my favorite one really!!

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I heard a lot of comments about it.
so I rent it and is absoluty amazing Much of the film unfolds in a lengthy flashback that opens in the mid-1960s, when the young Sandra is still living in her rural home with her parents and older brother,Her father, Abraham and mother, Sannie , run a grocery store for blacks. A passionate supporter of the government and its policies, Abraham insists that his black customers put their money on the counter, presumably to avoid physical contact. Sannie seems more tolerant, though she’s under the patriarchal heel. They’re loving parents, demonstrably fond of their children, whose physical differences (Leon has a lighter complexion) they don’t appear to acknowledge or even see until after they drop Sandra off at an all-white boarding school. woww you have to see it.Its good movie!!!