1/5 South Africa after Apartheid
  by TJ-STL (St Louis)
Great acting by Jackson and whole crew. Story ruined by makeshift love interest. African dialect very hard to understand and sound quality poor. They took a serious subject and trivialities it with short choppy incomplete stories. Also, even after Apartheid I don't think blacks were given free reign as shown or would a white woman sleeping with two blacks be condoned. No depth, just short vignettes.

5/5 In My Country
  by Patricia A. Bartlett (USA &Tanzania)
In My Country is the best movie I have seen about the changes in South Africa from Apartheid to free and the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. It wasn't always factual but was powerful. The performances were Oscar winning to me, and the beauty of song Senzenina (The Power of One) moving throughout the film made me weep. A must for anyone interested in a visceral look at those powerful days and months of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee hearings in South Africa. As we look at the problems that South Africa now faces, we can easily see through this movie, how they came to be, and how complicated the problems are. God help Africa, a land that many of us love.

2/5 Justice and Forgiveness: Well-Intentioned, But Too Melodramatic
  by Tsuyoshi (Kyoto, Japan)
"In My Country" (also known as "Country of My Skull") stars Juliette Binoche and Samuel L. Jackson based on Antjie Krog's novel. Binoche is Anna, Afrikaner poet and radio broadcaster while Jackson is Langston, sent from a Chicago newspaper. They both report the hearings of TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) in South Africa, where people gave their testimonies about the violence and abuses during Apartheid. Langston is also given a chance to interview a notorious police head De Jager (Brendan Gleeson), who knows what really happened to some of the victims.

But somehow director John Boorman thought it necessary to follow another story about Anna (who is married) and Langston who develop instant dislike to each other, then come to be romantically attracted. Except the fine acting from the two, their romantic story does not offer much partly because the film refuses to develop it, but the main reason is I think Boorman crammed too many things into the plot - most notably Anna's parents' story and Anna's brother's one, both of which should be left in cutting room. And the film tells us the story of De Jager and a little girl, which needs more time and more detailed storytelling.

[UBUNTU] As far as TRC section is concerned, the film is great. The testimonies are not only heart-rending but multi-layered because both sides must be present at the hearings. The film also has one great message based on a traditional idea called Ubuntu, humanist concept about the relations between humans.

But I still cannot see why Ubuntu should be told with the melodramatic story Anna and Langston. Philip Noyce's "Catch a Fire" (which is also set in South Africa) has certainly love affair in its plot, but it never occupied the central stage. "In My Country" is certainly made with good intention and has insightful moments about sins and forgiveness, but overall they are overshadowed by something else that should be told elsewhere.

2/5 Flirts with Genius, but falls short
  by J. Swagman
There are a lot of great movies about the South African struggle. I've seen "Gandhi" several times. I loved "The Power of one" and "Cry Freedom". But I suspect I'm not the only one who sees a video about Apartheid in the video store and thinks: Do I really feel like being preached to tonight? I mean I already get it, Apartheid is bad.

The good news about this film is that, in comparison to the other Apartheid films I've seen, it offers a fresh take. It takes during the Truth and Reconciliation commission hearings after the fall of Apartheid in 1994. During these hearings anyone who had committed atrocities during the apartheid era could make a full confession recieve amnesty provided they had only been following orders.

As such, the film offers a whole new set of issues to explore. Not simply "Let's all agree on how awful apartheid is", but also what is the best way for a society to move forward after the nightmare is over? What is more important for society, justice or reconciliation?

The bad news is that the film never manages to rise to the bar it has set for itself. As is often the case with these historical films, the fictional characters and story the film makers have created don't do justice to the real history. We get a glimpse of the complexity of issues under discussion at these hearings, but then the story veers away to the personal lives of white South African Anna Malan (Juliette Binoche) and cynical American journalistLangston Whitfield ( Samuel L. Jackson) and the unlikely Romance that develops between them. This would have been a much better movie if it had stayed more focused on the actual historical events, and skipped the hollywood love story.

It's not a bad movie, but it's one of those movies that flirts with genius, and then drops the ball, and you feel the disappointment bitterly. It is apparently based on a non-fiction book, "The Country of my Skull" which is supposed to be much better.


3/5 hollywood, ideology and reality
  by Daniel Sheffield (Hamilton, Canada)
OK, its a 3 star movie... but the issues raised as the reasons for a poor rating strike me as people who misunderstand the reality of South Africa. Having lived in SA both during the apartheid era, as well as during the TRC period, I have to beg to differ with some of the other reviewers.

1. the affair -- just follow the psychological distancing of Anna from her husband and her white liberal Afrikaner lifestyle, as she enters into the story of the real South Africa. The pyscho-social encounter of the real TRC hearings is beyond the capacity of a re-creation to convey. She bonded with someone who was with her in the moment, then realized it was a mistake. [besides the fact that affairs and other social aberrations were so common in the white community under the guise of the respectable Nationalist years]
2. how could Anna not really know what was going on? it's called compartmentalizing. you sense, out of the corner of your eye, but you don't want to admit that it could be true, so you repress. Especially when admitting to the truth would mean the end of life as you know it. We all do it, in various ways. Binoche's overdoing the breakdown scene in the hearing was poor, granted. But did those destabilizing occurrences happen at the TRC hearings, amongst the regular participants (journalists, commissioners, support staff)? yes...
3. how can Hollywood really portray the idea of forgiveness, amnesty, ubuntu -- its all a bit sappy, and ideological sounding, until you actually try to do it as a nation. has it all turned out to be a happy ending? no. but it had to be tried, otherwise there is no reason to hope for something better. (hence her brother's suicide)

for me the film gave a little glimpse of some human beings interacting with the notion of the TRC and the South African context. thanks John Boorman.