A Dry White Season will piss some people off.

Like Cry Freedom, it follows the struggle of a white South African man who suddenly wakes to the injustice of apartheid. Also like Cry Freedom, the movie spends a disproportionate amount of time on the problems of whites instead of Blacks.

A Dry White Season

Directed by Euzhan Palcy

At the Loews Harvard Square Theater

But whether or not you feel that's wrong you should still see the film.

Directed by Euzhan Palcy and starring Donald Sutherland, A Dry White Season begins with the suspicious deaths of a Black gardener and his son.

Bewildered by the deaths Sutherland who teaches Afrikaaner history to schoolboys, begins looking into the incidents. Soon convinced the two were murdered by the South African secret police, he seeks help from a liberal lawyer named Ian McKenzie played by Marlon Brando. (Yes Brando).

The first conversation between Sutherland and Brando marks one of the movie's high points.

After explaining his case to the portly lawyer, Sutherland tells Brando that he only wants "justice" through the "law."

But Brando, hoary, heavy and sans Stella, merely chuckles at the request.

"Justice and law," he says, "I guess they could be described as distant cousins. And here in South Africa, Well, they're just not on speaking terms at all."

Having vented his cynicism, however, Brando agrees to take the case, thus setting the stage for one of the best courtroom scenes ever.

But Brando's role is surprisingly small. For most of the movie, the action switches back and forth between the repression of Black protest in the town ships and the gradual disintegration of Sutherland's family, most of whom are exasperated by his crusade against apartheid.

"You are not one of them," his wife points out. "You have to choose your people or you have no people."