BOESMAN AND LENA (2000, South Africa/France/USA, 88 min.), directed by John Berry; screenplay by Athol Fugard and John Berry from Fugard’s play; cinematography by Alain Choquart; music by Wally Badarou; with Danny Glover (Boesman), Angela Bassett (Lena), and Willie Jonah (Old Man).

--Athol Fugard

Boesman and Lena is based on the 1969 play of the same name by Athol Fugard, one of this century’s greatest playwrights. The film is overall a very faithful adaptation (though, as we shall see, with a couple of key differences). It is set on the outskirts of Port Elizabeth (the southern South African city on the Indian Ocean where Fugard was born and raised, and where most of his plays are set), on the mudflats referred to as "Swartkops," where the Swatkops River flows into the sea.The play contains only three characters: Boesman, his woman Lena, and an old man who appears midway through the play. Boesman and Lena are "colored"--of mixed race--and thus, within the hierarchy of apartheid, of higher status than the old man, who is Black. But it is hard to apply the word "status" to these two drifters, Boesman and Lena, by the time the play opens.

They have just trudged into Swartkops, having been booted out of their previous shantytown abode, in Korsten. We sense that they have a lot of history together, most of it unpleasant. We learn that Boesman beat her earlier that day for accidentally breaking some wine bottles that could have brought them some deposit money, and clearly such beatings are not unusual. Lena talks and talks, and Boesman either ignores her or criticizes her. Lena, her mind garbled by drink and by years of instability and hardship, struggles to piece together the trajectory that has brought her to this place. She chants out the names of the places that they have been together--Redhouse, Veeplaas, Bethelsdorp, Missionvale, Kleinskool, Coegakop, Swartkops, Korsten--trying to get them in order. If only she can get them in order, perhaps she can understand how she has gotten to this point in her life, literally and psychologically, to this state in their miserable relationship. But Boesman will not help her out. He will give her nothing, except a place beside him in the ramshackle hut that he constructs out of refuse as she prattles on and on.

When the Old Man (whom Lena calls "Outa," an affectionate term in Afrikaans for an old person) appears nearby, scrounging about, Lena pounces on him, desperate for some real company at last. Ironically, Outa hardly speaks a word throughout the play (in the play it’s clear that they don’t have a common language), but at least he doesn’t tell her to shut up or douse her spirit with caustic comments. The old man’s presence allows her to open up, and we begin to see more and more of her history with Boesman. The old man also becomes the focus of a power struggle between Boesman and Lena, as Boesman forces Lena to choose between compassion for Outa on the one hand, and shelter, wine, and himself on the other.

Her choice--and its consequences--will destroy their relationship as it has been. But out of the smoldering embers comes new understanding and the possibility of something new, and perhaps better.

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Unlike the earlier Danny Glover films set in South Africa--Mandela (1987) and Bopha! (1993)--Boesman and Lena does not directly show many of the day-to-day details of the apartheid system; however, it is a film that shows the destructive psychological effects of apartheid--intense, all-encompassing, and masochistic.

In the distant recesses of a past that is only alluded to in the play (and which we see glimpses of in the film’s flashbacks), Boesman stood tall and proud, filled with the possibility of life. This was the man that attracted and won the lovely Lena. But the apartheid system gave him nowhere to go, and as frustrating day led to frustrating day, the hope, generosity, good humor, and ultimately his core humanity were inexorably ground out of him, to the point that--in Fugard’s words--"he is in every sense a cripple." Boesman and Lena had started their relationship with hope, with dreams of a permanent home , a family, and supportive companionship; instead, they become rootless vagabonds, unable to keep a child alive, hating each other’s company but unable to stay away from each other. "Society," according to Fugard, "has mutilated their love."

Through a systematic process of emasculation, Boesman’s frustrations and ruined hopes lead him to self-loathing and violence directed against the person he loves. "He gets at Lena simply because she’s the only one he can get at. Lena is Boesman’s victim. Boesman is society’s victim." (Fugard) As Danny Glover put it, "Lena can find joy, redemption, in the midst of this turmoil and degradation. She is the opposite of Boesman. He cannot see this, and it makes him even angrier." He lets this anger out with his tongue and his fists.

But over the course of the drama, Lena moves beyond being Boesman’s psychological and physical punching bag. She will live the life of society’s victim no longer. She becomes what Fugard, in deference to Albert Camus, calls a "rebel": "A rebel is someone who finally stands up and says ‘No! Enough!" And that’s what she says to Boesman. In so doing, she forces him to confront himself and what he has become. And in an unexpected act of kindness--grudging but genuine--he gives her what she has longed for, the correct order of their various abodes, points on the map of their life together, the shared tragedy of how they got from the sun-drenched then to the dark and dismal now: Coega to Veeplaas. Veeplaas to Redhous. On Baas Robbie’s place. Redhouse to Missionvale...I worked on the saltplans. Missionvale to Bethelsdorp. Back again to Redhouse...that’s where the child died. Then to Kleinskool. Kleinskool to Veeplaas. Veeplaas to here. First time. After that, Redhouse, Baas Robbie was dead, Bethelsdorp, Korsten, Veeplaas, back here the second time. Then Missionvale again, Veeplaas, Korsten, and then here, now. In the end, thanks to her, he recognizes what he has done and moves to a new awareness of who he now is, an awareness that may or may not allow him to regain his humanity, apartheid or no apartheid.

* * *

The collaboration of Athol Fugard, director John Berry, and Danny Glover on this production was clearly one grounded in mutual admiration and respect. Glover had performed in several of Fugard’s plays and had first made his name in New York through his performances in Blood Knot and Master Harold...and the Boys. In his own words, "If I hadn’t discovered Fugard twenty-five years ago, I may never have become an actor." John Berry had directed several of Fugard’s plays on Broadway, including a highly-successful and critically-acclaimed production of Boesman and Lena in New York in 1970. It was a coming-together that seemed predestined.

The film departs from the play in two significant ways. First, the play makes allusions to the past, but we see none of it--we are stuck in the here-and-now of their present misery. The film, however, punctuates the narrative with brief glimpses of those earlier, excrutiatingly happier times--including an early seduction scene, where a sensuous, vivacious, brazen Lena tries to get the handsome young Boesman to dance with her (in a way that is probably a foreshadowing of his future condition, he is too self-conscious to let himself go); and a scene of the happy young parents reveling in the wonder of their (short-lived) baby.

The other way in which the film departs from the play is by making Boesman and Lena Black, rather than Colored. In the play, it is significant that they are Colored and the old man is Black. Boesman is thus able to taunt and humiliate the old "Kaffer" as someone even lower on the apartheid pecking order than he and Lena are--a classic case of internalized and projected racism. Once the decision had been made to cast Glover and Basset--essential to the viability of the production--this element was lost. In exchange, though, we get performances by two superb actors at the height of their powers.

Director John Berry saw his work on this film as the culmination of a life as a social activist/filmmaker (he was one of the progressive filmmakers blacklisted during the McCarthy era). He loved making this film and was delighted with the collaboration. In his own words, "It’ll be great if people come and see it. And even if they don’t, it’ll be great because I’ll see it. I’ll have a cassette that I can take home and I’ll run it every night." Tragically, this was not to be, because Berry died at age 83 during the final post-production on the film. We, on the other hand, are left with this gift, a tribute to everyone involved in its production.