Description: The Power of One is an intriguing story of a young English boy named P.K. and his passion for changing the world. Growing up he suffered as the only English boy in an Afrikaans school. Soon orphaned, he was placed in the care of a German national named Professor von Vollensteen (a.k.a. "Doc"), a friend of his grandfather. Doc develops P.K.'s piano talent and P.K. becomes "assistant gardener" in Doc's cactus garden. It is not long after WWII begins that Doc is placed in prison for failure to register with the English government as a foreigner. P.K. makes frequent visits and meets Geel Piet, an inmate, who teaches him to box. Geel Piet spreads the myth of the Rainmaker, the one who brings peace to all of the tribes. P.K. is cast in the light of this myth. After the war P.K. attends an English private school where he continues to box. He meets a young girl, Maria, with whom he falls in love. Her father, Professor Daniel Marais, is a leader of the Nationalist Party of South Africa. The two fight to teach the natives English as P.K.'s popularity grows via the myth. Maria is killed. P.K. looses focus until he sees the success of his language school among the tribes. He and Guideon Duma continue the work in hopes of building a better future for Africa.
Great Film I think this is one of the best films Ive ever seen. Based on the novel of the same name, the film documents the life of a young British lad coming of age in South Africa in the late early 1940's. PK is sent off to a Dutch Boarding school following the nervous breakdown of his mother. There he undergoes a solitary right of passage hated by the other boys for his ethnic background. PK undergoes egregious psychological and physical abuse at the hands of the oldest boy.
He returns home to confide in his Nanny following the death of his mother. She then calls on a Sangoma (Shaman) of her tribe who renders a healing ceremony to PK, noting prophetically that he "is a man for all of Africa."
This film dramatically follows archetypal themes of the heroes journey. PK is then off to live with his Grandfather who turns the boy over to a Jewish Mentor who also happens to be a world renowned pianist and professor. His mentor guides him into the mysteries of nature, music, and following his arrest and later imprisonment by the British Administrators, PK goes deeper into racial hatreds while visiting the professor in prison. But there he also meets a second mentor (Morgan Freeman) who teaches PK the art of Boxing. (Freeman by the way gives one of the best performances in his career.)
The story then shifts again into themes of racial injustice with PK working to overturn the oppression by teaching blacks to read English despite the fact that the white government bans the practice. This event leads to the tragic death of his girl friend, and the various ironies found between conflicting ideologies. His girl friend is the daughter of a high government official responsible for the crack down.
Overall, this film empowers human life on multiple and subtle levels, and demonstrates that one life can in fact make a difference. I loved this film, and consider it great!
Screenplay very bad adaption of book. This has to be one of the worst adaptions of an excellent book ever made. The story has been turned into junk, i would have given it no stars at all if i could have, although i guess that the cast is worth the star.
Hokum & Bunkum A mish-mash of clashing concepts. The poor-but-from-a-good-family white english-speaking South African boy endures taunts and torture from Nazi Afrikaner schoolmates (wearing swastikas and saluting 'Heil Hitler'), encouraged from the pulpit and lectern by fascist Afikaner schoolmasters and preachers. He endures, befriends a (jewish?) music professor exile from Germany who is gaoled during the 2nd world war, learns to box from a black prisoner, is brilliant in music, boxing and apparently all else. Undermines the oppressive Afrikaner apartheid system from within, wins the respect of the black township dwellers by boxing their champion silly and by then organising classes to teach the masses English (apparently their greatest need) with the assistance of the beautiful daughter of one of the fascists - who was apparently previously insufficiently aware of her life of priveledge and the surrounding inequity. Naturally the great white hero wins the day and we can look forward to a good, liberal society where everyone speaks good English and the masses can walk the streets home to their township shacks free in the knowledge that their (white, english speaking) politicians truly care, and excel in pugilistic entertainment. Apartheid was bad, the nationalist government of the 1950s had a strong vein of fascism and some anti-anglicism. There is no need to dress this dire history with hokum. What would Steve Biko or other Black Empowerment spokespeople have to say about this one?
Power of One After having read the book, the movie was a HUGE disappointment to say the least.
This is NOT the Power of One As other reviewers have commented, the plot of the movie diverges so significantly from that of the book that I do not personally think it even merits the same name. The power of one as portrayed in the movie simply is not the power of one in the book. In the movie, the power of one was made out to be the ability of a boy to overcome apartheid through uniting the people, or something like that. For the real Peekay, however, apartheid was simply an ever-present reality, not the driving force of his life. It affected him and his decisions, certainly, but the power of one was the way that he made and remade himself, not society, through his friendships with particular important people.
The difference between these two meanings to the phrase is readily apparent within the first two minutes of the film, when he says that he was called P.K. because his name was Philip Keith. In the book, Peekay's real name is never once divulged, a fact which I consider to be highly significant to the meaning of the power of one. Peekay is a name which he chooses for himself after the only name he knows himself by is an incredibly degrading name (two words beginning with P and K) given to him by the Boer boys at his boarding school. Later, his confrontation with one of those boys as an adult and his assertion of Peekay as his name, not anything to do with apartheid, serves as the climax and finale of the book.
Moreover, Peekay's goal is to become welterweight champion of the world, not to overcome apartheid. While the idea that he may be some sort of prophet-like figure who will eventually unite the people to overcome apartheid, is certainly present, this manifests itself as a struggle and an unknown in Peekay's three-dimensional adolescent life, not a flat, hard-willed determination. While I know many people who have loved this movie, I can only say that to me it was flat, it was Hollywood, it was not the power of one, and, to me, it did not speak of Africa.
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