Harvard Film Archieve Features Black Arts

With its lack of glamour, muddy backdrop and plain-clothes nature, Boesman and Lena, the final film of the late John Berry, is not going to be a huge box-office hit. However, its sheer simplicity, truthfulness and humanity will draw dedicated and attentive viewers with its burst of reality, thus making Boesman and Lena the perfect film to open the Harvard Black Arts Film Festival.

Berry's adaptation of South African playwright and activist Athol Fugard's (Master Harold and the Boys, My Children My Africa and Road to Mecca) classic play takes movie-goers to the theater in more ways than one.Boesman and Lena starts with a jolt, in the middle of something that seems to be still looming over the two titular homeless wanders. Lena (Angela Bassett) stands alone in the middle of the screen begging Boesman (Danny Glover) to tell her how they got to this barren place. "Where did they come from? Which path did they take?" she asks. Boesman just laughs, refusing to tell her, essentially refusing to give her back her life and her past. He simply wants to forget. Like his forgetfulness, the barren landscape, which inhabits and nurtures no one or thing, is the telltale backdrop for the emotional and psychological journey that the two take. It is in this scenic nothingness and nakedness that Lena, a woman battered and dominated by her incapacitated husband, learns to assert her ownership of herself. Boesman is a man frustrated by his inability to be free, crushed by the weight of apartheid. Eventually, after much personal loss, he even uses his fists against Lena's body to ease his own heartache; it is the only way he can express his anger without disrupting "white bossman." But in the eyes and ears of a strange Xhosa tribesman (Willie Jonah), Lena finds truth and independence, and her journey towards wholeness and humanity begins. This three-person cast carries the weight of apartheid and oppression on their tired and bruised shoulders. After a storm, Lena finds herself fully clothed but naked to the truth. She tells Boesman that it is over'she has found the freedom that he lost earlier that morning, when he put all his possessions on his back. From play to film, Boesman and Lena never loses its theatrical roots. With the sparseness of the set, scenery and motion, the depth and exploration of the characters, it is hard to view this film as simply a movie. Fugard's writing style and emphasis on words is apparent throughout Berry's film, and it seems as if the words are what make reality concrete. It is only when the characters speak that truth is exposed. In this way, Berry follows in Fugard's own beliefs about theater and its powers. The purpose of theater in a civilized society, according to Fugard, is that the audience is to be entertained. But by entertained he means that "all dimensions of heart and mind [are] to be excited." Fugard sees "theater in any community as one of the most essential civilizing influences...It's the most probably heightened form of dialogue in the community." Berry, Bassett and Glover are committed to keeping their audience fully engaged emotionally and mentally. The juxtaposition of such intense meaning of the words and overwhelming emotional energy leave the viewer consumed by the lives of Boesman and Lena. Fugard was enthralled by Albert Camus's idea of "courageous pessimism," a quality he believes we should have in order to live significantly. Knowing the possibilities before her, Lena risks her life and even proposes her own death to her husband Boesman, projecting her will and power over him. Berry, who was blacklisted in 1951 by the House of Un-American Activities, left Boesman and Lena as a last testament of his artistry and political commitment. Berry's work in theater began early. In 1946, in his early 20s, Berry was a touring director for both Richard Wright's productions of Native Son and How Deep are the Roots, which was the first production to ever feature a white woman kissing a black man in America. Fugard describes Berry as "a man who had a burning sense of injustice." This led to the former's strong affinity for the African-American experience in the U.S. Years after directing the play's debut tour, Berry uses Boesman and Lena to speak about the post-apartheid situation of blacks in South Africa.In the end, Boesman and Lena leave their audience with the idea that struggle brings justice, piece by piece. It is a film that does more that simply entertain; it educates and brings humanity not only to its characters, but also to its audience. In this respect, Berry's dedication to Fugard's theatrical beliefs and desires allow the film to touch its viewer in a way and magnitude that is unexpected. Boesman and Lena is the first of the Black Arts Festivals Salute to Black Filmmaking. The Festival will continue to explore the different ways in which artists have attempted to entertain and educate audiences about the humanity and experience of blacks throughout the world.