DESITE the suggestiveness of its title, "The Man Who Drove With Mandela" touches only briefly upon that relationship in its review of the different social spheres through which Cecil Williams moved. This makes for an unusual documentary covering new ground in the investigation of South Africa's history.

Cecil Williams was a prominent theatre director in Johannesburg during the 1950's, entertaining international stars at his elite highrise flat. At the same time, he pursued dangerous political affiliations with the Communist party which led to his participation in the anti-racist freedom struggle. Because of the repressive political climate, he chose to maintain the separation not only of his professional and political lives, but also of his personal one. Only gradually did the people around him come to know about his homosexuality. Through archival footage, interviews with Williams' contemporaries including Mandela, and dramatic monologues in which Corin Redgrave articulates Williams' emotional conflicts, this film provides a fascinating look at one man's negotiation of a changing political landscape.

In making connections between Williams' involvement in a gay subculture and the subculture of freedom fighters, this film avoids anything simple like the equivalency of oppressions. It did not automatically happen that oppressed groups were politically sympathetic. Redgrave makes the most of that awkward form, the dramatic reconstruction of a documentary subject, to investigate Williams' own anxiety about his life's contradictions. Interviews with his contemporaries capture the awakening of freedom fighters to homosexual issues, and theatre people to homosexuality and politics. Schiller brings together these threads of Johannesburg life to show the roots of potential allegiance, and to speculate about Williams' significance to the recognition of homosexuality in South Africa's constitution. While she does justice to William's complexity, she could have devoted more time to his political activity, which tends to be down-played a little too much in favour of nostalgic recollections of the good times.