Long Night's Journey Into Day.

The title of Frances Reid and Deborah Hoffman's post-apartheid documentary alludes gravely to Eugene O'Neill's tale of the stingy patriarch whose concentrated policy of tyranny tears his family apart. South Africa's answer to the Nuremberg Trials, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is a unique political phenomenon praised by some for promoting forgiveness over revenge, and accused by others of ineffectively forsaking justice. Chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the TRC is charged with granting amnesty for violent crimes committed under apartheid provided that those crimes were politically motivated and that their perpetrators willingly offer full disclosure of their actions before the tribunal. Of the hundreds seeking amnesty (eighty percent of whom are black), Reid and Hoffman choose to focus on four tragic stories, beginning with the much-publicized killing of American Fulbright scholar Amy Biehl during a 1985 riot and concluding with the slaughter of seven alleged terrorists by the secret police. The latter provides the film's most devastating segment, in which the victims' embittered mothers face down one of the officers responsible for the murders, a young black man who joined the force with high ideals and ended up an agent of his own oppression. Who is to blame when violence begets violence, is the film's unsettling question, for which there are no easy answers. In a harrowing climax, one mother compassionately voices her forgiveness of her son's killer, making a strong case for the TRC's aim to impart accountability through open and honest dialog and to provide closure for victims' families. Throughout it all, the filmmakers maintain a distanced and impartial stance by allowing the involved to tell their stories unencumbered by agenda bias, only occasionally interrupting the flow of newsreel and interview footage with scenes of everyday life in South Africa.