Plot
The story is based on real events and real people and is set in the mid-1950s freehold township of Sophiatown, Johannesburg— one of the few areas in South Africa where blacks could own property and drink alcoholic beverages. Drum begins with the central character, sportswriter Henry Nxumalo, reporting on a boxing match with Nelson Mandela. Nxumalo leaves his wife Florence at home while going out into his community's night life and has an affair with a female singer. He works for Drum magazine, which was "the first black lifestyle magazine in Africa." The magazine was financed by whites and had a multiracial staff; it was popular among the black community. Drum's British editor, Jim Bailey (Jason Flemyng), asks Nxumalo to write on the township crime scene, and Nxumalo, while at first unwilling, finally agrees. While on the job, he encounters Slim (Zola), a gang leader, that he had previously met in illegal township drinking places, and witnesses him kill a man in Sophiatown.
Initially Nxumalo stays away from political articles, but eventually writes about more than entertainment after his wife and Mandela encourage him. When a young man goes missing at a Boer farm and is feared enslaved, Nxumalo decides to investigate undercover. He gets employment as a labourer at the farm, where he is treated like a slave and nearly killed. He becomes a celebrity when his story is published, further reinforced by getting himself in prison and reporting about its conditions. Nxumalo decides that his destiny is to be a muckracker and, with the help of the German photographer Jurgen Schadeberg (Gabriel Mann), ventures on more risky investigations.
Nxumalo frequently fights the racism and apartheid that is beginning to creep into his hometown. He tries to tackle stories important to his society's well-being. However, he is no match to the plan to evict residents and ultimately destroy Sophiatown. Constantly harassed by the government, at the end of the film he is stabbed to death. The attacker has never been identified.
Read more about this topic: Drum (2004 Film)
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“The plot! The plot! What kind of plot could a poet possibly provide that is not surpassed by the thinking, feeling reader? Form alone is divine.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
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