Word: rogosin
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When "Jim Lewis," 58, arrived at the Rogosin Institute at New York Hospital one year ago, he was a desperate man. Lewis (not his real name) had been suffering from severe heart disease for most of his adult life. His condition was due largely to a genetic disorder that afflicts 1 in 500 Americans, causing abnormally high levels of cholesterol to accumulate in the blood and ultimately clog the arteries. In Lewis' case, the strictest low-fat diet and all the drugs that medicine could muster had failed to control the problem. By the time he was 47, his arteries...
...report met with a mixture of optimism and caution in the medical community. "A 50% tumor regression is very good," observed Dr. Kurt Stenzel of the Rogosin Institute at New York Hospital, who is also working with IL-2. "But you still want more," he said. "You want it to go away and never come back." Doctors, including Rosenberg, expressed concern about the treatment's side effects. For most of the patients in the NCI experiment, the treatment caused serious fluid retention, with up to 20 lbs. of water accumulating in the lungs, liver, kidneys and elsewhere in the body...
Shot in black and white, Come Back Africa follows a young black man, Zacharaiah (Zach Mgabi), who leaves his native Zululand when famine forces him to the big city to try to support his wife and two children. Rogosin's camera-work starkly captures the cold hostility of Johannesburg; throughout the film there are shots of black and white workers moving, zombie-like, through the dreary streets of the city. These shots repeat throughout the film, setting a motif of alienation that reinforces the brutal racism depicted through Zach's travails...
WHAT MAKES Come Back Africa so very remarkable is not the predictable plot line, but several unusual features of its making. First, of course, is the secrecy in which it was made. Rogosin, his crew, and the actors risked their "freedom" to making this film. Second, though none of the actors in the film (save one) was a professional at the time, the performances are by and large excellent. The only professional is Miriam Makeba, who is inserted in the film near the end--breaking up an intriguing political discussion--to sing a few of the songs that would make...
...social and political climate in which the film was made required tremendous intestinal fortitude on the part of Rogosin. Come Back, Africa makes the strongest anti-apartheid statement I have ever seen by letting the horrors of South Africa speak for themselves. For example, the footage of men going to work in the gold mines, or the panoramic shots of the township in which Zachariah finally settles, are memorable. One wonders how the bombed-out townships look today if they looked so god-awful...