Ernest Cole, a South African photographer was the first to expose the horrors of apartheid to a world audience. His book House of Bondage, published in 1967 when he was only 27 years old, led him into exile in NYC and Europe for the rest of his life, never to find his bearings. Raoul Peck recounts his wanderings, his turmoil as an artist and his anger, on a daily basis, at the silence or complicity of the Western world in the face of the horrors of the Apartheid regime. He also recounts how, in 2017, 60,000 negatives of his work were discovered in the safe of a Swedish bank.
The Garden Cinema View:
Raoul Peck’s best work since his James Baldwin documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, finds him again seeking to revive the spirit of a chronicler of 20th Century politics and life. Whilst Samuel L. Jackson gave voice to Baldwin, here LaKeith Stanfield provides a kind of poetic imaginary narration of South African photographer Ernest Cole’s life in exile. Peck moves from a global movement against the injustices of the apartheid system to a very intimate journey which becomes increasingly touching. Cole’s melancholy wanderings through the USA and Europe are illustrated by an incredible array of rediscovered photographs. As the film shifts to this individual focus, something of the wider global context becomes muted. Although, to quote Carol Hanisch, the personal here feels innately political.
