Daily News from New York, New York • 33

NEW YORK'S BEST ENTERTAINMENT SECTION WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1989 j. uimi mi iuij it nip ii1 5 1 mill i a 1 siiissass? lis. "TV is i vVv I 1 A 'V -i-'-f 'NVrl .1 AN END TO COMPLACENCY: Zakes Mokae (I.) and Donald Sutherland in director Euzhan Palcy's examination of black and white South Afncans in "A Dry White Season." Wma law 'A Dry White Season' balances its indictment of apartheid with white and black stories A DRY WHITE SEASON. Donald Sutherland, Janet Suzman, Marlon Brando. Directed by Euzhan Palcy.

At Loews New York Twin, Loews 84th St. Six Chelsea Cinemas. Running time: 1 hour, 46 minutes. Rated R. ff an award-winning South African writer who has been under police surveillance because of his outspoken views) is somewhat mechanical in the early scenes, Palcy's personal sense of outrage is RY FREEDOM" AND "A WORLD I Apart" dealt with the subject of apartheid strictly from the perspective of white 1 so strong ultimately eM transforms the movie into teacher manages to live on such a scale is never explained).

Gordon Ngubene (Winston Ntshona), who lives in a typical shack in the black township of Soweto, has earned Ben's respect by quietly performing his duties as the gardener for 15 years. One day the anxious Gordon informs Ben that his studious young son, Jonathan (Bekhithemba Mpofu), has been beaten by the police. Ben, who dotes on his own young son, smugly dismisses the whole incident as "a minor matter." But this is 1976, and Jonathan joins the Soweto children's march, the now notorious incident in which black schoolchildren were mowed down by police sharpshooters for daring to demand a better education. The incident is recreated with heartbreaking realism. Jonathan is ultimately dragged away by the police, only to disappear.

Gordon begs the police to tell him the whereabouts of his missing See 'DRY page 39 a stinging indictment of apartheid rule. Ben du Toit (Donald Sutherland), the movie's key character, is a mere KATHLEEN CARROLL South Africans, a fact that many people found disturbing. "A Dry White Season" is also about a white South African's crash course in the brutal political realities of his homeland. But the movie is all the more powerful because director Euzhan Palcy attempts to present a more balanced view of the political situation to show how the repressive policies of the apartheid government devastated both an affluent white family and a courageous black one. Although "A Dry White Season" (based on a novel by Andre Brink, schoolteacher, but like the overly pampered white families in "Cry Freedom" and "A World Apart," he lives a sheltered existence in a ritzy suburb.

He can even afford a gardener Oust how a school- TFSsoy vere tfcSscSose to dying WILLIAM LAfJDEft i.