Field Report #1: Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation by Charles Burnett

For my first field report I chose to view Charles Burnett’s Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation on Saturday night. The film depicted the struggle of Namibians fighting for their freedom against South Africa, a battle which lasted up until 1990. After watching Burnett’s previous work Killer of Sheep, earlier that week, I found them to have distinct similarities. Both have a feeling of documentary-like style. In Killer of Sheep, scenes such as the man working in the slaughterhouse give the viewer a sense of watching a man at his trade and learning about how one does a certain profession. I experienced this feeling of being educated in Namibia as well. A number of scenes that come to mind are when Burnett shows the rallies and protests that went on throughout the political turmoil. These could easily be replaced with news coverage from the time. He also keeps true to Namibian culture by displaying native clothing and dance. In many scenes we could see women carrying water back and forth with baskets balanced on their head. In the celebration of independence at the end, the film showed women participating in dance that I can only assume has a historic cultural value. Another interesting comparison I discovered is Burnett’s presence of children within his pieces. The children especially in Killer of Sheep stick out in my mind. There were many scenes where the child was the main subject. In Carl’s favorite scene where the girl is wearing the dog mask, the film breaks away from the complicated and stressful lives of the adults and focuses on the children somewhat playing outside. Within this scene that could be playful, the dog mask interrupts this feeling and makes the scene almost have sadness to it. In Namibia, the child watching a beating gives a different dynamic to the scene. The sequence where a man is beaten while being tied up would be awful to watch in any case, but when we are introduced to the fact that the child is being forced to watch we are struck with another level of sadness because we view children as delicate and playful, not someone who should be experiencing such pain at such a young age. It was interesting to see two films about different subject matter by Charles Burnett. There is a kind of truth that can be found in his works that I have seen thus far.