An Act of Defiance Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

An Act of Defiance Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 18, 2020

The plight and ultimate triumph of Nelson Mandela is generally one of the better known stories of justice prevailing, or at least beginning to prevail, after decades of trauma and turbulence, but how many people can actually state with authority what got Mandela into trouble in the first place? Generally speaking, of course, a lot of folks would most likely know that Mandela's refusal to bend to the will of the white minority in South Africa which had instituted apartheid is what led to Mandela's problems, but the specifics of the story are probably not that well known, at least for many in the United States. While An Act of Defiance gets into some of the "nuts and bolts" of what ended up consigning Mandela to a sentence of (supposed) life imprisonment, the fact that the film's original title was evidently Bram Fischer may help to indicate that Mandela is actually a supporting player of sorts in this tale of a Jewish white attorney with that name (portrayed in the film by Peter Paul Muller) who helped to defend Mandela and his cohorts during what is commonly known as the Rivonia Trial.

An Act of Defiance begins with an absolutely horrifying scene that suggests that "waterboarding" was not exactly a new technique when it burst into mainstream awareness a few years ago. The white powers that be (or at least were) in South Africa are on the hunt for "revolutionaries" out to upset the mandates of apartheid, and that leads to a big police action where several people, including Nelson Mandela (Sello Motloung), are arrested. A number of supporting characters and subplots are introduced, but the upshot is that Bram Fischer signs on to defend the black group, even though he knows his chances of prevailing are slim to none. What is not initially disclosed, however (at least to the opposing side), is that Fischer himself is part of an "inner circle" that has been trying to undo the horror of apartheid. That gives Fischer an "undercover" status that keeps tensions high throughout the film, even as the "procedural" aspect of the trial plays out.

This film will probably unavoidably recall other South African based films with trials like A Dry White Season and/or Cry Freedom (note that the link points to an Australian Blu-ray, since that's the version I reviewed), but it has its own rather distinctive identity and approach. The film could probably have used a bit of tightening and there's occasionally a slightly melodramatic quality here which I'm not sure really helps matters. Toward the end of the film, there's also a bit of an overconvoluted scene involving a coda of sorts involving what happened to Fischer's wife Molly (Antoinette Louw), as well as Fischer himself, but these are probably niggling qualms in a compelling true life story that probably needs wider renown.

An Act of Defiance Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

An Act of Defiance is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Menemsha Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The IMDb doesn't have any technical data to speak of on this shoot, but I found one South African article which cited the Arri Alexa as having been utilized, and I'm assuming things were finished at a 2K DI. This is a rather sleek and generally well detailed looking presentation, though it seemed a bit wan in terms of saturation, with what some may feel is an overall too bright ambience. There are certain selected moments that can almost look out of focus, but on the whole, detail levels are solid in a film that really doesn't offer a wealth of opportunity for visual pop, other than some passing (and appealing) outdoor material.

An Act of Defiance Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

An Act of Defiance features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 tracks in what our specs list as English, but which also includes some interstitial moments in Afrikaans (with English subtitles). This is a pretty relentlessly talky film, but there is some good, if subtle, surround activity throughout the presentation. Indoor scenes with crowds, notably a lot of the trial material, as well as outdoor scenes which often function as segues, feature good engagement of the side and rear channels to establish spatial relationships and ambient background noises. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly, though there are occasional thick accents which the subtitles can help decipher.

An Act of Defiance Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailers includes An Act of Defiance (1080p; 2:27), along with trailers for several other releases from Menemsha Films.

An Act of Defiance Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Completely by coincidence, I'm writing this review on the anniversary of Nelson Mandela's birth (July 18, 1918), and while obviously not giving a full picture of what Mandela endured in his epochal life, An Act of Defiance is probably as good a way to remember this titan of racial justice as any, in the medium of film, anyway. Fischer's story is fascinating in its own way, though, and this film is to be commended for bringing it to light. There are a few structural wobbles here, but performances are excellent, and the film offers a devastatingly visceral depiction of what South Africa was like in the early sixties. Technical merits are solid, and An Act of Defiance comes Recommended.