An Act of Defiance (2017) User Reviews

Good movie telling the story of the Rivonia Trial

[Laakbaar · 8/10 · 21 May 2017]

This historical movie tells the story of the Rivonia Trial, which was conducted in Pretoria in 1963 and 1964. This is the trial in which Nelson Mandela (amongst others) was sentenced to life imprisonment for sabotage.

The story focuses on the lead counsel for the defendants, Bram Fischer. Fischer's story is an interesting one. He had himself been a member of the Communist party and had played a role in the planning of the sabotage. The defendants saw their actions as political resistance.

We meet Bram Fischer's family and friends. We witness the actions and dialogue of the various personalities in the anti-apartheid movement at this time. All the whites involved -- defendants, their counsel and their prosecutors -- were mostly Jewish. We also see the Afrikaner security forces of the apartheid state, doing their utmost to bring to justice a group they regarded with hatred. We see the details of the trial.

The director did a great job in recreating this particular time and place. I had the feeling that we were being shown a realistic film about life in South Africa at that time. The dialogue is mostly in Afrikaans but with some English. I suppose this easily bilingualism reflects the reality in South Africa. The use of Afrikaans certainly made the movie extraordinarily realistic.

I thought that perhaps the portrayal of the Afrikaner security and justice system was not painted with a light enough touch. They seemed unrelentingly evil. However, I saw this movie with an egte boer, and he did not find it offensive or inaccurate.

The story is interesting and well told in this film. At the end, the film became quite moving. I left the movie with the impression that Bram Fischer was an extraordinary and heroic Afrikaner. I recommend this movie especially if you're interested in learning more about South Africa during this period.

A very, very brave man

[frankde-jong · 8/10 · 10 November 2023]

Everybody knows Nelson Mandela, but who knows the lawyer who saved him from the death penalty? "Bram Fischer" is a tribute to this lawyer.

The film portrays Fischer as man with great courage. After all he resists "Apartheid" in South Africa without, as a white man, belonging to the group of people that is discriminated by Apartheid. His resistence is motivated pure by idealism.

Furthermore Bram Fischer had something to lose. He belonged to the Sout African elite. His grandfather had been prime minister of the free state of Orange and the grandfather of his wife has been a general during the Boer war.

Of course his sympathies with the ANC brought Fischer in conflict with the government. When we learn what happend when his son died, when Fischer got ill himself and with his corpse when he was dead we realize that fact is stranger than fiction. A writer producing a scenario like that would be severly critized because of exaggerating.

I had never heard of Bram Fischer, but he is not completely forgotten, and rightly so.

Nelson Mandela said about him: "Fischer was one of the bravest and staunchest friends of the freedom struggle that I have ever known. From a prominent Afrikaner family, he gave up a life of privilege, rejected his heritage, and was ostracized by his own people, showing a level of courage and sacrifice that was in a class by itself"

In 2012 the city of Bloemfontein renamed its airport in Bram Fischer International Airport.

His Alma Mater in Oxford organizes a yearly lecture to commemorate Bram Fischer.

A History Triumph: Outstanding Script, Acting, & Direction

[wpeigles · 9/10 · 31 December 2019]

Very well scripted and acted portrayal of the 1963 arrest and trial of Nelson Mandela and nine other ANC "trialists" (aka defendants) in apartheid-era South Africa. The focus is on their Afrikaner (white) defense lawyer, a well established advocate but political outlier from his own tribe as a closet communist and ANC supporter, whose whole life and family are roundly threatened by his sincere and dedicated, but predictably abortive, legal defense of the accused. An intriguing ethnic and cultural counterpoint is provided by the persona of the state's main prosecutor, a Jew whose role in prosecuting all ten defendants includes three who are also Jewish -- and is very motivated to do so for personal ideological reasons. As a period piece, this film feels very authentic, capably capturing the moods, sentiments, and affects of the privileged yet ever-fearful Afrikaners, the militant cadre of black resisters against apartheid, and the white supporters of that cadre in the South Africa of that era. The dialogue often varies delightfully between the serious and sporty, with most of the main characters seamlessly weaving English and Afrikaans verbiage together. The only real complaint is with the subtitles: They contain many mistakes in transcription and punctuation, and others are simply superfluous (e.g., "engine noises"). Not to worry, though, as the overall flow of meaning is usually clearly understandable, nonetheless. For all of South-Africa-philes, courtroom-drama aficionados, and history buffs, this is a very moving and insightful film that illustrates that good and evil can sometimes be intermixed and that even well intentioned people can suffer the burden of a complex of beliefs, motivations, fears and emotions that aren't always honorable.