[response to a complaint from another viewer about the conclusion]
Subject: A Dry White Season
The ending was pathetic, but I did warn you about that. Apparently killing off the major players was the only way they could think of to wrap up the story. Now, see, if it had been ME, I would have just had Jürgen and Donald's daughter both divorce their spouses so they could marry each other, and end the movie with a wedding scene. Donald could have been sitting there in church like Richard Dreyfuss at the end of WHAT ABOUT BOB? Nicely poignant, and much less of a bummer than the way they did it... But they never, never, never ask my advice about these things. Damn them.
Well, I watched "A Dry White Season" and I was very impressed. Donald Sutherland did a fabulous job acting. It was an amazing performance. Just watching the anguish on his face in the courtroom scenes was incredible. You really felt that his pain and anguish were genuine. The torture scenes were definitely disturbing. I've been a fan of Donald Sutherland's ever since I saw MASH. I thought that Susan Sarandon's character was a bit supurfluous. I didn't see any real need for her character. I think she's a great actress, but didn't portray the liberally reform minded character very well. I also thought her accent sounded fake.
I disliked the character of the daughter for betraying Du Toit. I just felt like smacking her. The same with the wife. It is really amazing that apartheid lasted as long as it did in South Africa and the grip it had on people. So, I liked the movie. But, I didn't like the ending either. It was just alittle too neat. I hate when a director, writer or whatever feels that it is necessary to have the clean crystal clear ending. it's too melodramatic.
[Captain Stoltz is Jürgen's worst - and therefore best - villain, and certainly one of Jürgen's top performances. Stoltz looks like a great guy in his first scene. He laughs, he chats, he's delighted as a kid at Christmas when he gets du Toit's autograph for his son. Minutes later he steps into the torture room and he's all monster. It's terribly startling, not least because he's such a cold bastard about it.
There's nothing demonstrative about Stoltz. He's calm and soft-spoken. Even after he raises his voice at someone for bursting into the room to deliver something, he simply takes the paper out of the fellow's hand; anybody else would have snatched it away nastily. Stoltz has way too much control over himself. I'd rather run into all of Prochnow's other villains put together in a dark alley than this one guy in broad daylight.
Most likely you'd never see him coming, though.
I find the contrast between Stoltz and General Kapler in PASSION AND VALOR interesting. While Kapler acts out of emotion and Stoltz acts out of lack of it - and Stoltz exhibits a far greater capacity for pure evil - Stoltz still looks like the better candidate for rehabilitation. Kapler is a bit of an enigma in that every feeling he thinks he has, and everything he thinks he knows about the human condition, is way off the mark. No matter what happens to him, he'll never be anything but a big bully; he'll never realize that that's what he is; and if he did realize it, he wouldn't give a flip. He thinks that abuse of power and doing anything you can get away with is what life's all about. You just can't imagine him waking up in the middle of the night thinking, "Oh, my god - what am I DOING?" He'd need a conscience for that, and he doesn't have any.
Stoltz does have a conscience, or something very much like one. It doesn't do anybody any good because he's stuffed all his feelings in a bottle - but while he never opens the bottle, sometimes it leaks a little. He's put himself in a position that alienates him from anything resembling normal society, but he really wants to be liked. It's pathetic. He's polite and apologetic to Suzanne, and even compliments Ben's taste in art while he tears their house apart and carts off their personal papers. After interrogating their little boy, he greets the kid like an old friend the next time they meet - and apparently expects a friendly answer. He wants to have a heart-to-heart talk with Ben, who all but laughs at the suggestion, and doesn't seem to understand why the du Toits aren't "hospitable" toward him. Whether he understands or not, he's clearly hurt by it, though he has no right to be. And then there's Suzette (see "The Best of Jürgen Prochnow"). The only two who don't reject Stoltz are his boss (and would you want THAT guy as your only buddy?), and the dog...whom Stoltz not only pets, but talks to. Gee, Stoltz looks like he's awfully lonely. And he has a son! You gotta wonder what his wife is like - if she's still around.
Stoltz seems like he could have been an okay guy (uptight, but okay) if only he hadn't chosen a career mutilating and killing people. At the same time, of all the Prochnow villains who deserved to get shot up, Stoltz deserved it the most. I just wish the honor had gone to Marlon Brando. -ed.]