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Cinema: The politics of the personal

Written by Candice Holdsworth
Thursday, 04 June 2009 00:00

An image is a powerful thing. From the moment we are born, we are visual creatures and, since the beginning of time, mankind has reflected upon what he has seen around him. This gave birth to that most human form of conscious externalization: artistic expression. The ancient cave dwellers faithfully rendered their visual experiences onto the walls of their homes to be discovered by modern explorers thousands of years later. These dreamlike etchings lost none of their resonance because we too can understand the innate desire to recreate the experience of the everyday. And, as mankind developed an ever more complex consciousness, he developed ever more complex methods in which to pursue artistic activity. Those of us alive today can bear witness to incredible technological innovation in cinematography, cinema being the 20th century response to artistic expression. Cinema has become a powerful tool for addressing the myriad of issues that we face in our nascent century.

This is particularly true in 21st century South Africa. What is our experience of the everyday? In South Africa, it is inherently infused with the political. An example of this is the statement on my birth certificate that says: “Candice Holdsworth has been classified as a white person.” A simple statement, a mere formality; however, it is a small manifestation of a grand rationale that governed the lives of all who have lived in this country over the past 50 years: that from the moment you were born, your identity could be defined by the colour of your skin. This was translated into policy, which affected every aspect of life: in which area you lived, what level of education you received, what jobs you were entitled to and whom you could marry. People were grouped into areas depending on whether they were deemed coloured, black, white or Asian and this everyday reality with which people were confronted seeped into consciousness until it became simply a part of life. Even when Apartheid ended and the legal and political restrictions were removed, the psychological traces remained. Race is still a dominant theme in everyday life, people still vote according to racial lines, still live in certain areas and still identify with racial “characteristics”.

This is reproduced in local cinema; the recent blockbusters White Wedding and Mr Bones 2 are testament to our society’s pre-occupation with race. Comedy, by its observant nature, reflects our social and cultural etiquettes made ridiculous, allowing us to laugh at certain uncomfortable realities. However, neither of these films is an attempt at the avant-garde or controversial; they are, in fact, “mainstream” in their aim and appeal. Cinema of this kind aims to accurately portray the norms and common orthodoxies of society in an easily palatable manner. White Wedding wrung dry every single stereotype of life in contemporary South Africa from the camp Capetonian wedding planner to the stern, parochial Boere of the Platteland.

The film is an attempt to demonstrate the huge social upheaval South Africa has experienced over the past 16 years as the two main leads are young, middleclass, black men on their way to a traditional European “white” wedding, at which one is the groom-to-be. On their journey, they encounter aspects of South African society normally associated with the Apartheid years; scenes in which the two sophisticated, urbane young men are confronted by small-town, rural Afrikaners are utilized to full comedic effect. Mr Bones 2 also makes use of caricature to illustrate its social commentary, perhaps in a more exaggerated way. It focuses on the story of a white “Sangoma” (witchdoctor) who was adopted by an African tribe after being found stranded in the bush. Leon Schuster, who wrote and starred in the film, is a veteran of the South African comedy scene. During the Apartheid years, his hidden camera shows focused specifically on racial stereotypes to generate laughs. Often, he would disguise himself as an easily recognizable figure of these stereotypes, instigating mischief with unsuspecting members of the public. He has been hugely successful in this endeavour. Mr Bones 2 is the highest grossing South African film since Mr Bones 1.

Home-grown comedy is demonstrative of that which is closest to the national psyche. It is more concerned with the subtleties of daily life in South Africa. Internationally produced films, however, tend to focus more on South Africa’s political history and more overarching, grand moral themes. These have included Cry, Freedom, Cry, The Beloved Country, Stander and Goodbye Bafana.

Stander is particularly notable in this regard as it dramatizes the racial tensions in 1970’s Johannesburg during the crime spree of convicted bank robber, Andre Stander. Stander is portrayed as a misanthrope, a cop turned robber. Once a member of the establishment, his involvement with the Soweto Riots in 1976 leads him to rebel against the unjust Apartheid regime and he becomes a legendary figure in the South African media as he carries out daring daylight robberies. Stander is made a sympathetic figure by the emphasis upon his guilt and remorse for having participated in the violent suppression of black protestors during the riots and having been personally responsible for the death of one young man. The film tries to humanize and generate sympathy for what appear to be the actions of a largely self-interested white male by placing them within the larger context of Apartheid South Africa.

These efforts have led local observers to ask the question: Does South African cinema really provide catharsis? Does it accurately portray society or does it merely reinforce cliché? Mick Raubenheimer of The Times writes that “Two or three formulas seem to govern our output: if it isn’t addressing our political past, it should be vulgar slapstick or kitsch-inspirational.” The latter description is directed towards more recent, internationally award-winning efforts such as Yesterday and Tsotsi. These two films – although they do not seek to address overt racial themes – are often characterized as “Afro-pessimistic” in their depiction of poverty and hardship or perhaps “kitsch-inspirational”, as both films end happily for the downtrodden protagonists. A new wave in South African cinema is striving to overturn these notions.

Aryan Kaganof, director of SMS Sugarman, says: “We are still making colonized films, using the colonial idiom of Hollywood to further distance ourselves from who we are. The sorry state of South African cinema reveals the sorry truth about post-apartheid South Africa. We are not liberated. Not by a long shot.” SMS Sugarman (2008) is, in fact, a cinema first: shot entirely on mobile phones over the course of 12 days, it tells the tale of Sugarman, a Johannesburg pimp, and his three “sugars” whom he sells to lonely “wallets” over the course of one Christmas Eve. It explores the seedy underbelly of Metropolitan Johannesburg and its seedier characters.

Jersusalema (2008), another recent offering, also explores the more sleazy and squalid side to life in Africa’s wealthiest city. It follows another young tsotsi’s life of crime and ambitious careerism with unflinching, brutal authenticity along with Triomf (2008), an adaptation of the 1994 award-winning novel by Marlene van Niekerk, which is set within the Afrikaans community of Triomf (Afrikaans for triumph). In it, we are introduced to the dysfunctional Benade family – poor white Afrikaners living out their lives on the eve of democracy in 1994. The Benades are part of that less visible side of Apartheid: poverty-stricken white people. The characters in these films are deeply flawed, unsentimentally portrayed figures with no hope of eventual moral redemption. They represent a movement in South African cinema which seeks to open up a rapport with more contemporary concerns, the experience of the post 1994 generation.

This is the inheritance; the soaring idealism of the Apartheid years has been replaced with a more sobering realism – the reality being that South Africa is still very much a society in flux. Although Apartheid has been defeated, we have been left with its less abstracted remnants: inner-city decay, endemic crime and poverty, corruption and ignorance. The fact remains that the various colours of the Rainbow Nation are still getting to know one another. South Africa experienced a massive upheaval in social organization; 20 years later, this is still fresh. There is still so much more to be made sense of, even after the noble aims of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It puts me in mind of a quote from Nietzsche: “We have art in order not to perish from the truth.”