‘Sarafina!’ (PG-13)

Occasionally "Sarafina!" soars on the high notes of its star-struck young heroine or echoes with the cries of South African children lost to Boer genocide, but mostly this political musical strikes a jarring chord. An awkwardly enthusiastic cross between a township "Fame" and a kid's "Cry Freedom," it suffers not only from this dramatic clash of Hell and hip-hop but, as with most adaptations, from the transition from stage to screen. There are the usual traces of greasepaint, the creaky speechy feel to the dialogue; worse, though, is the realism the camera brings to the scenes of torture and murder that actors can only approximate onstage.

Leleti Khumalo, a natural show stopper, reprises her Tony-nominated performance as the saucy Sarafina, a resilient Soweto teen whose irrepressible spirit is tested by the bullies who enforce apartheid. Set in the treeless, junk-strewn township, the film opens with a toe-tapping production number that might have been choreographed by Paula Abdul. This is quickly followed by a spine-tingly jazz version of "The Lord's Prayer," with Whoopi Goldberg conducting the chorus and doing a little hoofing in the schoolyard.

Goldberg, who accepted the role in hopes of helping the filmmakers gain a wider audience, plays history and music teacher Mary Masembuko, an inspirational activist who teaches the children from a black perspective. To the distress of Sarafina and the other pupils, the peace-loving Mary is arrested by a militaristic goon squad, never to be seen again. When the kids run into the schoolyard to protest, the soldiers gun them down in cold blood. Subsequently, the grieving youngsters murder a neighborhood collaborator, which leads to their arrest and torture. But not before they can knock off an uplifting chorus or two.

Though the contrast feels unnatural, it is based on reality, according to Mbongeni Ngema, the playwright and lyricist who conceived "Sarafina!" as a tribute to the children who came to the forefront of the anti-apartheid movement after the incarceration of its leaders. Ngema, who co-wrote the screen adaptation with William Nicholson, also wrote the evocative lyrics for Hugh Masekela's moving score, which blends the indigenous music of South Africa with strains of blues and gospel. The energetic cast includes the once-exiled Miriam Makeba in a cameo as Sarafina's mother, Angelina, a role written for the movie.

Some of the most powerful moments address Sarafina's relationship with her mother, a domestic who lives with her employer in a wealthy Afrikaner suburb. Sarafina, who lives with her aunt in Soweto with her brothers and sisters, ruefully observes that the white family admires Angelina's able child care: "Mama is good with children. Only her children don't live here, do they?" The discrepancies, the injustices, the cruelties, all have been shown as ably in dramatic variations on the theme, but never solely from the perspective of black South Africans.

Director Darrell James Roodt (of the award-winning anti-war film "The Stick") may never quite pull the film's disparate elements into a whole, but he does engender a wealth of heart among this host of talented young performers.

"Sarafina!" is rated PG-13 for violence.