Fugard's Point of View on the Film 'Taxi to Soweto' and Cultural History of South Africa

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Taxi to Soweto by Manie van Rensburg (1991)
Introduction
Taxi to Soweto by Manie van Rensburg was released in 1991. This film became the first film to show signs of a post-apartheid South Africa. The apartheid system has existed in South Africa since 1948, and this system meant that an all-white government adopted and enforced policies of racial segregation. As seen throughout the movie, the apartheid system was harsh, especially to the black community. The system legalized segregation and made it difficult for blacks to live peacefully and equally in South Africa. While noting the huge gap between "whiteness" and "blackness" in apartheid South Africa, the film a Taxi to Soweto marked new dawn by ushering in a new era of interculturalism. Taxi to Soweto is a gentle story that foretold the likely changes that would sweep South Africa in the 1990s. From the start to the end, the moral of the story is that of forgiveness and forgetting, just as seen through the lenses of the film's protagonist, Elize Carwood, and her husband. Jessica accepts a lift from a Sowetan taxi driver (after their car broke down), but moments later, the taxi driver is hijacked at gunpoint and what followed was a journey into "the black experience" of Soweto. Through this experience, Jessica's restricted experiences about apartheid South Africa changed entirely.
Athol Fugard
One of South Africa's greatest and passionate white writers, Athol Fugard, shared his views mainly through films, including Taxi to Soweto. As stated by Als, "apartheid grew under Athol Fugard's skin just like a boil that needed lancing." As such, films such as Taxi to Soweto were some of the most important remedies to these persistent problems that had made it hard for whites and blacks to co-exist. Like many other films, Taxi to Soweto was "the first cut" to the persistent problems of apartheid, including racism, segregation, and inequality. As a writer, Fugard placed much faith in mass media as the only strategy to build a system of acceptance and new intercultural order. Through this film, there is a deep examination of the cultural clashes across South Africa. What is evident is that the resultant racism, divide, and segregation caused by apartheid was worth mentioning throughout the film. Even though the film is presented as a comedy of errors, the film delves extensively on the systemic prejudices and embedded stereotypes created during the apartheid. Thus, it offered room to explore South Africa's major problems during apartheid and recreated a new intercultural society post-apartheid.