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Tuesday, March 27, 2018

A United Kingdom (2015)

This is a really good, and also true, story that is well told, about Seretse Khama, the King of Botswana, who came to England to be educated and met the love of his life and married her in 1948.  She was a true partner to him in every way.  She loved him deeply, but she also shared his vision for his country, and together they forged their way through some very challenging waters.  A mixed marriage was not the least bit acceptable socially and politically at the time.  South Africa, another British colony, was instituting apartheid.  Interracial marriage was illegal in some parts of the United States until 1972, when the Supreme Court overturned the practice.  And it wasn't just the British who opposed it.  Seretse's own people were dead set against it.  You can sympathize with them.  He has married the occupying enemy and brought her into their camp.  So no one sees the use in this but them, and together they outfox the British, retain mineral rights on their land, and here is the important part, diamonds are discovered, which funds the infrastructure of the entire country.  Nicely played.  There is also a brief moment with Churchill, which fits into a theme related to him in films of late.

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