TIFF Review: ‘Ernest Cole: Lost and Found’ Is a Vital and Expansive Portrait of Apartheid

There’s the old saying that “a picture says a thousand words” and the moving pictures of cinema have certainly attested that truth. Before the advent of film, however, the still image was equally powerful. In 1863, for example, the now famous photo of “Whipped Peter” helped to catalyze the abolition of slavery. A century later, South African photographer Ernest Cole achieved a similar impact as he documented the ongoing apartheid regime. His life and work is now portrayed in Raoul Peck’s latest documentary Ernest Cole: Lost and Found. And in his usual style, Peck uses Cole’s work to craft a far-reaching statement on the stains of white supremacy.

Ernest Cole: Lost and Found uses an amazing discovery as its jumping-off point. In 2017, 60,000 negatives of Cole’s photography were mysteriously found in a Swedish bank vault, 27 years after his death. With no information to explain it, the inexplicable finding nevertheless proves to be a treasure trove, as this captivating film subsequently reveals.

Lakeith Stanfield guides us through the tumultuous journey of Cole’s life, narrating the photographer’s own words alongside Peck’s further embellishments. Adopting a sombre but assured tone, Stanfield proves to be an effective stand-in, as archival video gives us a brief but palpable sense of Cole’s passionate but measured persona, whose plainspoken declaration that “South Africa will be free” comes across as divine prescience.

While Cole never lived to see the end of apartheid, the film brilliantly underscores Cole’s troubled optimism and transports us to his fraught world. Through the evocative power of his photos, immersive sound effects and the eloquent narration, Enerst Cole is a mesmerizing act of resurrection through the art of cinema. As we witness various facets of the apartheid like “Europeans Only” signs and banishment camps, it is a thorough examination of systematic oppression.

Perhaps the most resonant segment of the film, however, involves Cole’s later exile to the United States in his later years. In this regard, the film palpably shows the perfect marriage between Peck and Cole’s equally provocative sensibilities. Indeed, Cole’s gradual disillusionment with the supposed freedom of America and his observations on the soullessness of New York City perfectly coheres with Peck’s knack for debunking the idealistic myths of the Western world’s progressiveness. Furthermore, the side-by-side juxtaposition of similar images of segregationist oppression in America and South Africa is a striking testament to America’s own depravities.

Eventually, Cole’s ultimate disillusionment and homesickness causes the film to run out of things to say. But nevertheless, it remains visually compelling thanks to the extraordinary images. Like the photos that were lost and found, it serves as a further preservation Cole’s vital legacy.

SCORE: ★★★