IT'S NOT IRAQ `CATCH A FIRE' CREW SAYS FILM IS NO WAR METAPHOR.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

The people behind the new thriller ``Catch a Fire'' don't want their movie labeled as an anti-apartheid film, even though it takes place in South Africa in the early 1980s and follows the true story of Patrick Chamusso, an apolitical husband and father who becomes a rebel fighter after being wrongly accused of sabotaging an oil refinery.

The filmmakers also downplay any parallel between the way Chamusso turned to terrorism after being severely tortured and imprisoned without charge and the ramifications of what's happening to ``enemy combatants'' held by Americans in Iraq today.

``Certainly, when we fear something, we can react irrationally,'' says ``Catch a Fire'' director Phillip Noyce. ``We can forget the principles we're supposedly defending. But the film was made to celebrate something positive rather than provide commentary on today's events.''

So what do Noyce, screenwriter Shawn Slovo and producer Robyn Slovo -- two women whose father, Joe Slovo, was a leader in the African National Congress and whose mother, Ruth, was assassinated by members of the apartheid regime -- want the film to be about?

``That it is possible to forgive and to move on,'' Robyn Slovo says.

``That's the message of South Africa today. There is a way to resolve conflicts that isn't violent and it's a way that isn't used enough in the world.''

Adds her sister, Shawn: ``People talk about the terrorism and the torture, but, for me, the themes of forgiveness, reconciliation and dialogue -- almost the opposite of what is happening in the world today -- are what resonate. Anti-apartheid movies ... that's been done. I know. I wrote one of them.''

(Slovo wrote 1988's ``A World Apart,'' loosely based on the lives of her parents.)

A question of timing

``Catch a Fire'' has caught some early flak from critics who think it feels a bit too familiar. Variety's Todd McCarthy wrote: ``Stories of resistance to oppression will never become obsolete, but this feels like a picture that should have been made long ago.''

And, indeed, Shawn Slovo has known about Chamusso's story for 21 years now. She says she needed the hindsight that time provides to be able to write the movie, particularly since many people predicted South Africa would fall victim to anarchy during the turbulent period that led up to the nation's first multiracial elections in 1994.

``Patrick was still in prison in 1991,'' says actor Derek Luke, who plays Chamusso in the film. ``You could have made a movie earlier, but making it now, you see the man, what he has done with his life and how he has shown the world that he is better than the worst of his enemies by forgiving them.''

Living to serve

Chamusso today runs a rural orphanage in the northeastern part of South Africa, 300 miles from Johannesburg. He and his wife support some 80 orphans, many with HIV, using money from his own pension.

Interviewed by phone from New York, Chamusso says he's OK with the fact that somebody made a movie about the life of an ordinary man, but that doesn't mean he wants to watch it.

``I can look at the first few minutes, the happy times, but the rest of it is painful to me,'' Chamusso, 56, says. ``You can go and watch it, but for the person who was the victim, it is not easy. Old memories come back, old memories I want to forget.''

Still, Chamusso worked as an adviser to the film, showing up every day during the month-long shoot in South Africa. Noyce shot at the same Secunda refinery where Chamusso worked and which he later bombed. He showed Noyce exactly how he placed the explosives. Later, he spoke extensively to Luke about the torture he endured.

``It was strange because you'd have Patrick coaching Derek and then you'd have these ex-Security Branch guys talking to Tim Robbins (who plays a South African police leader), telling him the proper interrogation techniques,'' Noyce says.

``Not many years ago, these people were enemies. Now they're co-existing.''

Says Luke: ``That's the thing that stood out to me about South Africa.

Chamusso still walks around and sees people from time to time who were responsible for his torture and imprisonment. Somehow, people there have moved on.''

Meeting the inspiration

Luke is no stranger to dealing with the stories of real people, having played Antwone Fisher in the 2002 Denzel Washington movie and a star Texas high-school running back in ``Friday Night Lights.'' Luke generally likes to keep his distance from his subjects, but that wasn't an option on ``Catch a Fire.''

``I had enough on my belt without meeting Patrick,'' Luke says. ``I had so much to embody -- the people of South Africa, the man, the culture and the language. When you meet the person you're portraying, you want approval from them. It's mentally and psychologically demanding.

``But Phillip wanted me to meet Patrick, and he wanted Patrick around,''

Luke continues. ``I understood. And he became a hero to me. I had so many questions, but he always turned the questioning around. He started interviewing me.''

What did he ask?

``Did I know Beyonce?'' Luke says, laughing. ``I don't, but he got over his disappointment, I think.''

Glenn Whipp, [phone].

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A South Africa legend reflects on America's diamond

`Baseball ... we say the same thing about it that Americans say about soccer. It's boring, right?''

Patrick Chamusso asked this question about an hour before leaving for his first baseball game, the Game 2 playoff contest between the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals at Shea Stadium. Chamusso, the South African man whose life is the subject of the new thriller ``Catch a Fire,'' was waiting for Mets fan Tim Robbins to finish his last interview promoting the movie so they could leave for the game.

``I'm of an open mind,'' Chamusso says. ``Tim, he loves the Mets. He said I would love them, too.''

The Mets lost the game but apparently won a fan, according to Derek Luke, who plays Chamusso in the movie.

``He ate a hot dog, he got a Mets hat, and he couldn't stop saying, `Man, I love baseball,''' Luke says. ``Then he said, `But we lost, and I didn't want to tell Tim.' I told him, `Don't worry, Patrick. I think Tim knows.'''

-- G.W.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) `FIRE' FIGHTER

Derek Luke palys South African rebel in `Catch a Fire'

(2) ``I had so much to embody. ... When you meet the person you're portraying, you want approval from them. It's mentally and psychologically demanding,'' says Derek Luke, above, of playing family man-turned-South African rebel fighter Patrick Chamusso.

(3) The real Patrick Chamusso, left, and Derek Luke, the actor who portrays him in ``Catch a Fire,'' got to know each other on the set. ``He became a hero to me,'' Luke says.

Box:

A South African legend reflects on America's diamond (see text)