You will not see a more powerful documentary movie this year than Long Night’s Journey into Day, opening a two week engagement at Film Forum on Wednesday, March 29^th.

Filmmakers Frances Reid and Deborah Hoffman have offered four morality plays, each of which is emotionally shattering.

The place is South Africa, post-Apartheid. The catalyst is the provocative Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. They have been convened to perform the daunting task of healing a nation, a land torn by the most hateful oppressive government policies of the last century.

Families of victims confront the slayers of their loved ones… black victims and white victims… black assailants and white assailants. The camera follows all of them and your heart will break, not only from the specific pain of the individuals before the camera, but the realization that they are just a few in a saga that entails thousands and thousands. It is yet another painful reminder of the depths of despair that humanity can achieve. Long Night’s Journey into Day is an exposure of the scabs and scars created by hate.

Though most modern religions boast and campaign about forgiveness, there has never been anything as extraordinary as South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

When a widowed wife tells the camera that 12 years of rage are enough and she wants to be free of the pain, there is a glimmer of hope in the healing process.

The four cases explored in Long Night’s Journey into Day are vastly different. The parents of a white American Stamford co-ed try to find their daughter’s passion, when they extend forgiveness to the black youths who killed their girl, amidst political protest. The accused and convicted youths were startled to discover that their victim was in South Africa fighting apartheid. Two black activists from the community of Caraddock were murdered by a white cop who seeks absolution. It was one of the widows who pleads to be free of her hate and rage in a stunning revelation. Seven wailing mothers view police videos of their slaughtered sons and confront two of the responsible cops, one white and one black.

A tall ANC militant explains the oppression that motivated his violent act, a bombing that resulted in the death of three women. Their relations listened to his historic justification. In each and every case, we are reminded that the dead will remain dead while those seeking forgiveness will continue to live.

Bishop Tutu gives moral interpretation of this historic commission, in a movie narrated by Helen Mirren.

This film is a challenge to the viewer. I began to wonder if NYC’s police department is capable of entering into a Truth and Reconciliation Commission with the family of slaughtered citizens. Your mind and spirit might be reeling after seeing Long Night’s Journey into Day, but like the commission, in some curious manner, you might feel cleansed and even hopeful… or angry enough to fight the ignorance and bigotry that creates the conditions so that there is no need for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.