The Bang Bang Club

I consider myself as quite a nerd so it is probably not surprising that I absolutely love History. I really wish that more people could share my interest in things such as the French Revolution and even the Apartheid era. There was a recent debate in my class about whether it is important to 'harp' on about Apartheid even though we have been taught about for years and years already and should move on from it- and my answer is that we should. There is so much more to Apartheid than the white man's oppression of the black man that the History text books and protest poets have failed to mention. One of the most interesting parts of Apartheid (for me) is the black-on-black violence from around 1990 to 1994 so I was beyond excited when I found out that a movie was being made about this specific time.

'The Bang Bang Club' is a film based on the experiences of four combat photographers, Kevin Carter (played by Taylor Kitsch), Greg Marinovich (played by Ryan Phillippe), Ken Oosterbroek (played by Frank Rautenbach) and Joao Silver (played by Neels van Jaarsveld), during the Apartheid era (particularly in the townships of Southern Johannesburg from 1990 to 1994). The film highlights the fight for power as the Xhosa-dominated ANC and Zulu-dominated IFP political parties sensed the end of Apartheid. The townships such as Soweto set the scene for the most horrific black-on-black violence.

What I loved:

-Taylor Kitsch was sexy in his role of the troubled and Free-spirited Kevin Carter.

-The movie was not biased so as to create a hero and a villian. It exposed the inner-conflict of all parties involved even questioning the social responability of photo-journalists.

The not-so hott parts?

The South African accent is not that easy to imitate so Taylor Kitsch sounded like a drunk Australian half of the time. And the movie could be quite confusing without back round knowledge of the township violence.

My recommendations?

Watch it now! Go.

Uhm... kbye