2 min
Come Back, Africa
回来吧，非洲
1959
Lionel Rogosin
South Africa · Drama / Documentary · 83 min
In apartheid South Africa, a Black farmer leaves his village for Johannesburg, only to find no place for him under the pass laws and the city's iron rules.
01Why this film today
Like Manila in the Claws of Light in this batch, Come Back, Africa is also a story of one person arriving in the city — except here the city is zoned into life and death by apartheid. Both films turn the camera into a witness, both were banned by those in power, and both resurfaced decades later through restoration.
02Film details
- Chinese title
- 回来吧，非洲
- English title
- Come Back, Africa
- Director
- Lionel Rogosin / 莱昂内尔·罗戈辛
- Year
- 1959
- Country
- South Africa / 南非
- Language
- English
- Genre
- Drama / Documentary / 剧情 / 纪录
- Runtime
- 83 min
03About the film
扎卡里亚告别南非北部的乡村，走进约翰内斯堡谋生。白天进城做工，夜晚必须离城；城市的门为他开着，却从不真正容纳他。在歌舞与喧嚣之间，他四处打听家人的下落。
04Why it is a classic
Winner of the Italian Critics Award at the 1959 Venice Film Festival and named one of Time's ten best pictures of 1960. Shot in secret under the cover of a commercial musical unit during apartheid, it is a rare fusion of docufiction and political cinema that profoundly shaped later South African film.
05What to notice
以拍摄音乐剧的商业剧组作掩护，在约翰内斯堡、Sophiatown 及白人禁区秘密拍摄，导演随时面临没收、驱逐与逮捕。
主演多为街头民众，即兴演绎自身经历，是少数用非洲土著语言记录黑人生活的非音乐类电影之一。
年轻的 Miriam Makeba（米里亚姆·马科巴）在 shebeen 场景中登台献唱；罗戈辛贿赂官员将其带出南非，使其得以在威尼斯共同参展。
2005 年由 Cineteca di Bologna / L'Immagine Ritrovata 修复，2012 年 Milestone Films 发行修复版；南非政府曾禁映此片。
06Before you watch
影片介于纪录片与剧情片之间，节奏与表演带有强烈的即兴与街头质感；建议结合种族隔离与通行证法背景观看，方能理解其作为历史证词的分量。
07In one line
A film shot under a lie and edited as testimony — it keeps the breath of 1950s South African townships on celluloid.
