With the release of The Blind Side 2: The Helpening this past weekend, the racial politics of Hollywood have once again come under scrutiny, and were it being given a theatrical release, The Bang Bang Club would probably get caught in the crossfire. Based on the true story of several news photographers active in South Africa during the years 1990 to 1994 (from the release of Nelson Mandela to the first free elections), Club is largely free of the kind of self-congratulatory liberal platitudes that racial 'problem' films are generally accused of having, and presents a more critical eye than one might expect, but still suffers from a sort of historical myopia. In this case, Club had its own meaningful story to tell, but in its inability to appreciate the larger social context, it obscures the significance of many of the events that it depicts, and fails to convey just where the place of the lead characters was in the whole mess.
It's 1990, and the writing is on the wall for the South African government. The country is breaking into different fractious movements, with the African National Congress violently fighting with both the indigenous population being punished for the group's actions and the repressive white minority government stifling any contest to its racial policies not exceedingly different from those that the Third Reich imposed on the Jews. Fire and gunblasts are going off everywhere, and the world needs photographers to get in the middle of it. Filling this void are Greg Marinovich (Ryan Phillippe), Kevin Carter (Taylor Kitsch), Ken Oosterbroek (Frank Rautenbach), and João Silva (Neels Van Jaarsveld), intrepid photographers willing to risk life, limb, and moral culpability for a chance to get close to the action. For their troubles, two members of the 'club' were rewarded with Pulitzer prizes, but also with jarring questions about their own involvement in the violence that they depict, and moral agony over the way that their careers have been built on the suffering of others.
Club never holds up any of its characters to be pillars of human morality; it shouldn’t. The most famous photograph to come out of this group was taken in the Sudan, and featured a small child being stalked by a hungry vulture. Carter won the Pulitzer prize for that photograph, but melted under pressure when he was asked the inevitable question: did he do anything to help the child? The succinct answer is that no, he didn’t (although certain accounts vary), but the argument that he makes is that he helped the child by bringing awareness to the situation. A dubious claim, which Club is not unaware of, but neither is the film interested in probing the boundaries of journalistic ethics. Instead, Club spends most of its running time detailing either the alcoholic and sexual proclivities of its titular club or watching them mope around with the consequences of what they’re doing (surrounded by the lavish appointings that it has afforded them).
It’s not that Club had an ethical obligation to provide a broader perspective on the South Africa situation (though some could argue that it did), but it would have given a better context for understanding just why the experiences of these people were important to the situation at large. The set-pieces that they find themselves in are certainly important (and dynamically staged), but without a significant voice representing the oppressed population (every so often, an angry young black man shows up to remind Marinovich that he is, in fact, white), the true significance of their work is never really felt or revealed. If it were, it would perhaps reveal a divide between the photographers and their subjects that would be too difficult for an audience to bridge, and reveal that no matter what their work reveals about the racial dichotomy in their country, they are still very much the beneficiaries of it. The Bang Bang Club is not a hypocritical film, as it never makes any ethical claims that it can’t back up, but it suffers nonetheless for its slim perspective on the world, and its inability to grip the full scope of South African politics.
Blu Ray Bonus Features
The Blu-ray contains a 'making-of' featurette, an audio commentary by Steven Silver, a few deleted scenes, some interviews with the cast and crew, and a slideshow.
"The Bang Bang Club" is on sale August 16, 2011 and is rated R. Drama. Written and directed by Steven Silver. Starring Malin Akerman, Taylor Kitsch, Ryan Phillippe.
