If a documentary film about South African Apartheid that leaves you wanting to sing and dance seems an impossibility, that's just one reason to check out Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony. In his first feature length film, director Lee Hirsch went to Johannesburg and spent over nine years making this music film about the power of the human spirit. Through the prism of its songs, the story of 45 years of struggle unfolds and emerges triumphant with the end of official apartheid and the election of its most mighty opponent, Nelson Mandela, who had spent 27 years in prison for his anti-apartheid activities.

An interview with director Lee Hirsch reveals how he found a perfect fit with his activist disposition and making a film filled with another love, music. Amid powerful archival footage from newsreels, new interviews, and official "public service" films produced by the government, such as a how-to instruction for controlling one's domestic servants, Hirsch interweaves the many songs that proved empowering. Among them is the unsettling Madam Please, a maid's admonition to her boss that she can not neglect her own children to take care of her employer's child, and the stunning a cappella voices of Vusi Mahlasela and so many others. Music is often a rallying force in times of social change, and here it emerges as the single best, and at times only weapon for solidarity and against oppression.

This extraordinary human drama, a journey through 50 years of political and social upheaval viewed through the prism of its music, effectively provides not only a comprehensive and compelling history but flaunts the amandla (power) and exhilaration of the music as well. The seminal event that begins the film takes place at the graveside of Vuyisile Mini, murdered composer, politician, and revered figure in the early fight to stop the apartheid movement. Hanged 40 years earlier and buried in a shallow grave, his remains are exhumed for a proper burial. Interviews with musicians, freedom fighters, journalists, and white former prison guards fill in a rich tapestry of the struggle and the triumph.

The sometimes cheerful sound of the melodies masked the words of bitter anger and revolt, which the English speaking government did not understand and provided a way for native South Africans to snicker openly at their oppressors. Other times the fierce anguish is in every note, syllable and drumbeat.

Hirsch is not a silent observer. Although he does not appear in the film, his agenda is clear as he paints a musical picture of the power that was used to mobilize an entire population. A population of black South Africans who were literally commandeered and relocated to provide the slave labor that fueled the economy for the benefit of the white, European government. The musician best known to American audiences is Hugh Masekela, who came to the United States in the 1960's and recorded the best selling hit single Grazin' in the Grass. Seeing and hearing him in the context of his native land and people, his sound is so clearly at home in South Africa. One of the unusual and strongest elements in this film is its effectiveness in doing what the music of apartheid did so well: understand that the universal appeal and beauty of music would do more to rally and empower the people than speeches and oration ever would.

Hugh Masekela	Miriam Makeba
Nelson Mandela	USA. Documentary. 103 minutes.
Directed by Lee Hirsch	Interview with Lee Hirsch