Analyse af filmen 'Goodbye Bafana'

The film goodbye Bafana takes place in South Africa in 1968, where the black people were under apartheid. The film is about James Gregory who is a prison guard the must guard Nelson Mandela. He grew up in a town called Transkei in the eastern South Africa where his best friend was a black boy named Bafana. In a young age James Gregory learned to speak Xhosa which made him the perfect guard for Nelson Mandela and his inmates on Robben Island. In the beginning of the film James Gregory is a racist who thinks black people are the reason to all evil in South Africa. All he wants to do is make life more difficult for Nelson Mandela and the other black prisoners. One day James Gregory overhears a conversation between Nelson Mandela and his wife Winnie. He chooses to inform his boss about what he heard about their son who has gotten a driver license and a car as well. Later on, the information James Gregory said to the boss results in Nelson Mandela’s son’s death. Afterwards James Gregory reads the freedom charter, which he has always thought was about the black people wanted to take over South Africa and destroy the white peoples. From that point James Gregory, gradually starts to change his vision about the apartheid system. However, it’s not without consequences. When the citizens of the island began to find out about James Gregory’s unexpectedly switch of position, they weren’t happy. His wife’s salon didn’t have any costumers any longer and people were talking behind their bag. Shortly after, James got an offer to be transmitted of the Island to work at another prison. But the hate followed the family and eventually their son Brent got killed in a “car accident” as well. At that point Nelson Mandela and James Gregory had met again, but this time it was as two friends and not a prison guarder and his prisoner. Step by step the conditions got more and more improved and finally after more than 20 years of struggling, Nelson Mandela got released in 1990.