THE
POWER OF ONE by: Jacob Eischen
The power of one is a movie
about a young man P.K living in South Africa during World War II. P.K is a
British child living in South Africa with his mom, his Zulu nanny and her son.
She ends up teaching P.K the ways of Africa while his mother teaches him the
ways of England. His mother ends up having a mental breakdown and his is sent
to continue learning at an Afrikaner boarding school where he is bullied by one
of the Afrikaners Jaapie Botha. The bullying by Botha leads him to having
nightmares, to fight these nightmares he is helped by a South African man
Dubala Manzi, who teaches him courage. As a result of conquering his fear Manzi
gives him a chicken, “mother courage.” Mother courage becomes his best friend
but he and mother courage are taken to a small mock trial by Botha. During the
trial they hang mother Courage in front of P.K after which the Dean walks in
and Botha is expelled. This movie truly does the best with its Character
development. The people in the story play such a huge part in P.K’s life. For
example a man named Doc when living with his grandfather, Doc is in jail for being
considered an enemy during WWII but he plays a huge part in teaching P.K who
regularly visits him. While in jail visiting Doc he meets an African man Geel
Piet who teaches him how to box. While there he orchestrates a concert for the
many African prisoners there and unites all the tribes with music. He is than
sent away to study at a very prestigious school in Johannesburg called Prince
of Wales. He then strikes a love interest during a boxing championship, Maria.
Her father won’t allow them to date so they date in secret. To become a better
boxer P.K trains at a multiracial boxing gym where he meets a man Gideon Duma.
A black boxer, known for fighting against apartheid. He wants P.K to become a
face for their fight against apartheid. P.K helps the children of Dumas Township
by holding English sessions for people of the township so the teachers can
better help the children. During their second teaching session the police
intervene and Maria is killed. In the end the police force led by his childhood
bully Botha attacks Dumas Township and injures many as well as killing a few.
The movie ends with P.K walking with Duma as fugitives fighting apartheid evil
reign.
Although not a true story P.K fights apartheid in a
couple ways probably the most important was through teaching the natives of Duma’s
township. One major problem of apartheid was that the natives weren’t educated
well enough to make a change in their lives so they continued to live in
poverty with no hope of change. By educating the teachers he allowed the
children to have a chance in life and become educated individuals who could
make a difference. I honestly though the movie is worth the watch; but it’s not
really the best movie. It lacks pretty important structure, the movie is truly
all over the place and not really centered on a central theme. To me it seemed
more like 3 mini movies. It does kind of give you some good insight on
apartheid
Here is a clip from the
movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55kZOTHxUJQ
Sources:
·
"The Power of One." All
Content. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2013
·
"The Power of One." IMDb.
IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2013.
·
"The Power of One - The Rainmaker
and The Myth Business." YouTube. YouTube, 10 Mar. 2012. Web. 19 Dec. 2013.
The setup for "The Power of One" certainly seems interesting, and it's a shame I don't have the time to watch it at the moment. From what I could gather from the YouTube clip, this movie seems very inspirational and heartfelt, things that tend to be prevalent when a movie is made about topics such as apartheid. I strongly agree with the point that the lack of education led to the poverty of the natives in South Africa. Knowledge helps people interact with and question the world around them, and nothing represents change more in a person that learning something that you didn't know previously. As Nelson Mandela himself once said, "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world'. But the question is, how is it, exactly, that people are bringing education to South Africa? Who is doing it, and what strategies do they use to ensure that education becomes an important aspect in South Africa?
ReplyDeleteThis post was pretty well written. I liked that the author gave a summary of the movie, although is was kind of hard to follow outside of the context of the movie. The author also used good examples to describe the best aspect of the movie, which was character development.