Amandla! explores the power of music

Throughout the period of apartheid in South Africa, beautiful and meaningful art emerged in the form of music. Freedom songs acted as a collective mobilizing force among the oppressed black people throughout the country. Not only did music help them cope with their struggle, but it also led them to victory. The documentary Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony, winner of the Freedom of Expression award at last year’s Sundance festival, explores the power of song within the anti-apartheid movement.

Director Lee Hirsch began work on Amandla! in 1991. The project lasted nearly nine years and was shot almost entirely on video. His interest in the country’s politics and previous anti-apartheid efforts inspired him to carry out the project of this documentary and move to South Africa. He eventually permanently moved there.

‘Every time I went I just kept staying longer. People that go there sometimes say that they’ve got ‘the bug.’ You just get into it it’s so exciting,’ Hirsch said in a recent interview.

Throughout his stay, the director met a plethora of inspiring musicians, poets and activists who were passionate about telling their story for the film and in some cases even perform the songs that saw them through to revolution. Among the more notable subjects are singer Miriam Makeba, trumpeter Hugh Masakela and pianist Abdullah Ibraham. Hirsch interviewed the participants in their studios, living rooms and on their porches in order to provide a comfortable, open forum for families and friends to talk, remember and join in on song. As a result, the film provides as much personal insight and anecdotes as it does history and portrays song as collective memory.

Hirsch asked Sherry Simpson, a music video producer and Boston University alumna, to produce Amandla! in 1992, and she enthusiastically agreed. Not only did she have a strong belief in the power of music through her work with hip-hop, but she also had an extensive knowledge of apartheid issues. While at BU in 1985, she participated in a legislative program in Washington, D.C. where she interned with Mickey Leland in the Black Caucus and researched South African politics.

‘South Africa is a country where people, despite their past, are forward looking. You would think they would feel more hostile. But there were no victims in this film. Everyone was positive and energized. Art and music were everywhere,’ Simpson said.

Amandla! begins with the removal of the bones of folk musician Vuyisile Mini from an apartheid-era gravesite before a respectable, proper burial occurs. Mini’s story and folk music are at the film’s center; Simpson labels him ‘the Bob Dylan of South Africa.’ The musician played a major role in organizing the liberation movement, and he was executed as a result. One of his most well-know, folk songs ‘Beware Verwoerd!’ (‘The Black Man is Coming’), a piece resisting racism appears at several moments throughout the film, including a spontaneous performance by family members at a gathering at their home.

Hirsch successfully juxtaposes song with archival footage that follows the history of the anti-apartheid movement. He also visits locations that are uneasy reminders of oppression, including the township Meadowlands, to which blacks were evacuated in the 1950s, and a prison for former activists. A conversation with a former prison guard provides one of the only unsettling (but necessary) moments in an otherwise uplifting and vibrant documentary.

The film closes with a jubilant festival that took place in 1995, one year after Nelson Mandela’s election as South African president. Musical groups gathered to the event to celebrate the role of the arts in the struggle and freedom of black South Africans. In one performance, Mandela appears on stage, singing and dancing, reveling in the songs of freedom being performed. The viewer leaves Amandla! feeling as energized and enlightened as the up-tempo song that thousands of voices are chanting at the film’s conclusion.

‘The entire stadium burst into song. It was an experience of tremendous unity,’ said Simpson of the event, which she saw as her true induction to South Africa.

With the current political situation of the United States in mind, Hirsch does not want us only to take South African history away from Amandla!. He suggests that those people who strive for peace in times of struggle can discover the mobilizing, unifying power of music in their protests. Unlike the Vietnam protests of the 1960s and 70s, music does not play a major part in the current anti-war movement. According to the director, Amandla! can teach us a lesson or two in persistence, hope and raising our voices with the force of music behind them.