Cry, The Beloved Country [HD]

A MAGNIFICENT AND MOVING FILM...
This adaptation of Alan Paton's best selling novel is superior to the 1951 version starring Sidney Poitier, though that earlier adaptation is also excellent. Here, Richard Harris gives a sharply drawn performance as a hard nosed, well to do landowner in South Africa with a somewhat negative attitude toward the native population. James Earl Jones gives a beautifully nuanced, sensitive performance as a simple, country preacher who is described by a colleague as simply the "best man he ever met".

The story takes place in 1946. The preacher temporaily leaves his flock and family to go to Johannesburg to search for his brother, his sister, and his son, Absalom. For those who are well versed in the Bible, the name "Absalom" is not without significance.

He finds all three, but too late. His brother has turned away from the church and become involved in racial politics. His sister has turned to prostitution, and his son has become involved with less than salubrious...

James Earl Jones Shines in Noble Performance
Darrell Roodt chose carefully when it was time to direct the first film of South Africa after the abolition of Apartheid. Alan Paton's novel was first filmed in 1951, and "Cry the Beloved Country" is a tale that seems as much a part of the South African collective zeitgeist as Twain or Hemingway or Steinbeck is part of America's.

This film version is centered around perhaps James Earl Jones' most powerful screen performance. He stars as the Reverend Stephen Kumalo, a clergyman from a small town in South Africa. He is a strong man of faith and leads a congregation in matters both religious and practical. His son ran away to Johannesburg to work in the mines, and his sister went away also to join her husband. His brother, John, is also in the city, an outspoken black activist who has abandoned the ways of religion because religion is not creating justice for blacks. The film opens with Reverend Kumalo receiving word that things are not all well in Johannesburg...

Patience for this movie pays off in the end
I remember seeing the trailers for "Cry, The Beloved Country," in the theater before it came out, later I realized I missed my chance to see it on the big screen when I saw it in the video store. I can only imagine the impact this movie would have on me if I had seen it on the big screen.

In the opening scenes the audience is treated to absolutely breath-taking images of the hills of South Africa, it is there that you are introduced to the story's protangonist Rev. Kumalo, the pastor of a small country church in South Africa. The role of Kumalo is played brilliantly by James Earl Jones.

In the opening scenes Rev. Kumalo travels to Johannesburg to come to the aid of his sister and to search for his son. While in Johannesburg, the lives of Rev. Kumalo and James Jarvis, a weathly farmer and neighbor of Kumalo played by Richard Harris, are brought together by an event (I will leave it at that) that will profoundly affect the lives of both men. Pay particular attention...

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