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The power of one essay

I am writing the synopsis of a film called “ The power of one”, The film was published in 1993 but is set in about 1930 – 1948 in South Africa. The film is about the life of a young boy growing up in South Africa.

The film starts in about 1930 with a young seven year old boy. He is English and his name is peter but he is known as PK which he inherited from his father. His father was killed by an elephant so PK lives with his mother. Pk was brought up around black people since a young age and has never thought of them as different.

His nanny and best friend are black and they are like family to him. After PKs dad died his mother took over the business but she realised she couldn’t cope. It was decided PK would have to go to a boarding school. He was afraid and didn’t want to leave his mother but he had to go. The boarding school he attended was mainly for Afrikaners and PK was the only English boy there.

In the school they tried to teach him that Afrikaners were better than Black and English people and PK didn’t understand why. After all his nanny and best friend were black. PK soon got bullied because he was English. The main bully was a boy called Botha. He and his friends would put PK in a corner and urinate on him, he soon got nick named piss kopt and said that it standed for PK. He was treated so badly he started to wet the bed.

Things were so terrible for PK and it soon got worse when his mother died. He went back home for the funeral where he stayed with his nanny. PK was given his mothers bracelet which his father had bought her when they were younger, he decided he would never take it off. After a while PK had to return to the boarding school but he was terrified.

He confided in his nanny and told her about the bullying. She got him to see a medicine man that could help make PK brave and conquer his fears. PK had a vision of an elephant running at him but he stood up to it and wasn’t scared. The medicine man gave PK a chicken and told him it would always protect him. When PK returned to boarding school the war had broke out against Great Britain. The Afrikaners being Dutch loved Hitler and followed Hitler’s beliefs so again at school PK was the enemy for being English.

One day Botha killed the chicken and was about to kill PK but it didn’t go to plan and he lived. After PK was supposed to move back with his nanny and best friend but they were sent away. PK was then sent to an English town in South Africa to live with his grandfather. It was here he met Doc, a close friend of his grandfather who would be looking after PK.

Doc gave PK an education and they became very close until PK was sent away to a prison camp for being English and not Afrikaner. However Doc was treated with respect as he was German. The Afrikaners knew he was German and so just expected him to be nazi but Doc was actually Anti-Nazi but went along with it so he could get to look out for PK. By this time PK had obviously grown up a bit. One of the black men at the prison camp was called Pete and he taught PK how to box and he became an excellent boxer.

The Afrikaner guards at the prison camp treated the black people like dirt. One guard even made a black man eat dirt off of his own shoe. The guards also called them ” Kaffir ” meaning black slave. PK became very popular with the black people as PK treated them as if they were equal, PK became known as ” The rainmaker ” and that he brought goodness to their life. As time went by the war was nearly over and Doc would soon have to return to Germany.

The guards told the black people to organise a concert. They decided they would sing in their own language, this way they could sing the truth about the guards as they would not be able to understand what they are saying. Everything is going well at the concert but Pete doesn’t arrive. A guard caught him on the way that made him tell what the black people were singing about. The guard then beat up Pete and he died. After the war had ended PK moved to an English School and was now about 17 years old.

At this time Apartheid would have been brought in. PK had a boxing match and he spotted a girl in the crowd called Maria and falls in love with her, although she is Afrikaner. Maria also likes PK but her father would go mad at the thought of them together. He is the professor at the school. PK asks him for permission to see Maria but he won’t allow it he is totally in favour of Apartheid. However Maria doesn’t care what her father says and see PK anyway.

When her Father finds out he gets two police officers to spy on them. One of the officers happens to be Botha who used to bully PK when they were younger at school. Maria changes her views on Apartheid and shouts at her father, he tells her she is never to see PK again and so Maria runs away. She goes to see PK and helps him do a lesson teaching Black people. The two police officers come to the school and say it is to be shut permanently.

They then turn up at PK’s boxing club they beat everyone up and then burn down the club. They take the owner to prison as on the shop window he had painted a black and white man together. PK tells Maria he loves her and gives her his mother’s bracelet. They then decide to teach the lessons secretly at the church but they get caught. Everyone gets beaten up and Botha went to hit PK but Maria gets in the way and gets killed herself.

She gets killed by an Afrikaner, one of her own people and black people sing at her funeral. PK goes to live in a black village but the police come searching for him as he gets the blame for the death of Maria. Lots of black people are killed whilst searching for PK but he hides away in a hut. He sees Botha about to shoot an innocent black man and so gives himself up.

Botha and PK fight and Botha gets shot in the end. The film then ends with PK and his black friend walking off into the sunset and he says that they are out to bring the world together.

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