I would have loved to watch this movie...

after those singing parts in the movie it was actually pretty good, i didnt love it but i had to watch it in school. and it was alot better than i expected. there were a few more singing parts but thats it

...Constant singing? Have we been watching the same movie? And was it the music you didn't like? It's South Africa, you know, there's music there. I recommend Cry Freedom for a South African freedom fight type of music, but, umm, there's singing in that one too... :)

Well, you know, this film WAS originally a Broadway Musical.....and Leleti Khumalo (Sa-ra-finaaaaaaaaa!) got a Tony nomination for it...

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I have to agree, but perhaps for different reasons. (or maybe you did have the same problem with the singing that I did. You didn't really elaborate.)

MY problem with the singing was the absolutely horrible job that was done with the lip-syncing. The music itself was beautiful, uplifting, stirring, etc., etc., but I had to turn my head away when they sang and just listen until the song was over. The voices didn't match well with the people singing them (It was like a 3 year old singing and instead of hearing the voice we expect, he opens his mouth and out comes a basso profundo) The actors singing voices didn't sound anything like their speaking voices. They just didn't mesh and it was grating to the senses.

The second part of the lip-sync equation was the actual mechanics. It was just awful! Peoples mouths moving when they shouldn't, not moving when they should have, etc, etc. I recall one shot in particular where we see a close up of a young man singing. The song has 5-6 (maybe more) words sung, but instead of seeing the lyrics enunciated, the singer is shown holding one constant note the entire time. The shape of his mouth never changes once.

It made the movie appear very disjointed because the rest of the film was done well. Nice camera angles, wide panoramas, tasteful close-ups and all the other advanced techniques you see in a well done movie. THEN, they would open their mouths to sing and it all went to hell in a handbasket. It then took on the appearance of footage that someones dad had shot with his brand new camera and hadn't bothered to read the owners manual. Instead he had smoked a fattie and washed it down with a cocktail or 3 and transformed into Fellini...........in his imagination anyway. There are all kinds of tricks and techniques to use when filming lip-sync and we don't see a single damn one in this film. A cutaway at a crucial moment, microphone slightly obscuring the mouth, other action in the shot distracting attention from the singers mouth (like a magician who diverts your concentration with his hand gestures or things he is saying, etc, etc. We see none of that in this film. Instead we have to suffer through a disjointed, grating, unrealistic mess every time someone opens their mouth to sing and it's a shame because otherwise this is a really good movie, singing and all.

The story suffers from it and the music suffers from it. It's too bad because I thought the music was great, but I had to work pretty hard to enjoy it.

You need to listen to more artists, because I know of a few who sing and there singing voice sound nothing like there speaking voice. Such as Mic'hele the R&B singer. She has sort of a baby voice when she speaks, but when she sings you don't believe it is her when it really is.

Songs were the best part. lol

Well its been 10 years but I just wanted to suggest the movie "A Dry White Season".

A Dry White Season was originally a novel concerned with the aftermath of the famous Soweto Massacre when South African troops fired on a protest of black Bantu children being forced to learn in Afrikaans "the language of the oppressor" as Desmond Tutu so eloquently put it.
It isn't a complete reenactment but has solid acting and isn't a musical.


Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.