Film Review of The Bang Bang Club

1. In general, what did you like and dislike about the film?

Something that surprised me every time was the level of explicit violence that they showed in the movie, as when they killed the enemies with knives / machetes and even set them on fire while still alive. But, the best part for me was when the old black man told the story of when they were being attacked; he was in his mother's house with his son, he heard that the whites were giving them orders not to talk and just shoot, then he went to see how his wife was to finally find her lying on the floor with her intestines out of her body, then went to see his baby and realized they had murdered his three-month-old son. I think that his story was very moving.

Something that I didn't like were the characters. It bothered me that they were white people with privileges even when they were mixed with the blacks. And I couldn't sympathize really with any of them.

2.  How does the film make you think about your future role as journalists and film makers/producers/creators/directors?

Throughout the film, photographers were seen to be exposed to dangerous situations while carrying out with their work. In several of these occasions cameramen appeared with perhaps a journalist or a filmmaker-I never knew what they were-. But this made me realize the exhibition that must be done to get the photographs or videos that are left in the history about what happened in these sectors of war and tragedies.

And, for the same reason, it made me realize how important these people are that fulfill those roles, to demonstrate reality and a point of view about what was happening, so that it wasn't always just one story and you have to settle for that.

3.  In this film, and various of the other films, we have seen how black South Africans went to vote massively in April 1994 to seal the downfall of the apartheid system with the electoral triumph of Nelson Mandela and the ANC, now more than 20 years later, we see many of the problems originated during the apartheid are still present such as land inequality, class inequality, unemployment, etc.

How have the dreams from the anti-apartheid struggle played out since the ANC has been in power? (Remember to use the article South Africa’s Coming Two-Party System)

The great majority of what happens in South Africa, problems and wars, are the product of those who led, that is, white people. However, some of that could change, even to have a black president, who was Nelson Mandela, and that was a bit lower the problematic level that existed. In spite of the fact that some of the requests for rights for black people were fulfilled, most of them with an economic sense, there is still that privileged sector, which are white people