Dilemma (1962)

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Drama

Danish director Henning Carlsen had his own dilemma when on location for this drama about apartheid in South Africa -- he had to film under the pretext of doing a documentary on music because the government at that time would have forbidden this project. The pretext also accounts for a sequence on a black South African musical.

The story begins when Toby (Ivan Jackson), a young English businessman, arrives in South Africa to take charge of a publishing firm. He knows little about apartheid and so at first sees no contradiction in developing a relationship with an elite, upper-class white woman and with a woman dedicated to fighting apartheid.

But as Toby makes friends with one of the black South Africans (Zaku Mokae), and as he registers both the subtle and more obvious, deep-seated racial prejudices of the minority white population, some of the truth of the oppression here begins to dawn. That is brought to a head when tragedy strikes.