Hugh Serfontein

The name of the movie intrigued me. Where’s the “power” in the movie? Who had it? Did the two boys who were shot in the end by a racist cop have it? I’m confused. Is it called Amndla because it shows the people with the real power being the ones standing alive in the end? Very odd. I got suspicious when the dad felt that the “baas” was good a person but he paid the kids to leave before his racist buddies rock up. Why would he host a party on a day which he know holds such horror memories for the people who work for him? Why is the main gangster called Shaka? Is that honouring to one of the last tribal kings? Why were the racist ones not given significant name like Eugene Terblance or Jan van Riebeek? Why Shaka? I normally enjoy South African movies but I think this was a case of predominantly white production trying to telling a black story and not being able to understand nuance of the black South African stories. The only highlight was that the acting from the the two were superb and I wish they go on to better projects. The writers and producers should probably have asked them things rather than telling them what to do. This is a sad fictional tale situated in a time and people who had real pain.