This South African movie is one of the better offerings so far this year. In some ways it seems like a small film but it is packed full of emotions and observations.
Set in 1981, when compulsory military service reigned in South Africa, it tells the story of Nick, fresh out of school and sent away to two years’ military training plus a stint of border duty with Angola.
Nick (an excellently contained portrayal by Kai Luke Brummer) has a lot of growing up to do and a secret. He is gay and this is the worst crime for the army, they constantly rant against gays and smoke out any conscripts who are suspected of being so.
This storyline flows like an undercurrent in the whole movie and surfaces when Nick has an attraction to a troop mate, Dylan Stassen (Ryan de Villiers) after they spend a night in the freezing cold digging a trench.
Stassen is later sent elsewhere and we get to feel Nick’s sense of loss even though the relationship is so discreetly sketched.
The other main story is the indoctrination of the young men via constant racist attacks on the blacks, once physically and otherwise by name and the linking of blacks with communism and everything that is a threat to the South African state.
Hilton Pelser as Brand does a memorable job as the evil sergeant major. Watching from now at how one “version” of the way the world works is the only valid one, promoted and pushed by bigoted white men, shows how policies like apartheid take root and survive so long. No inclusion necessary, you accept the game or shut up.
Oliver Hermanus is a young very promising director who does a great job with this movie and is co-screenwriter adapting it from a semi-autobiographical book.
Jamie Ramsay’s photography is excellent, lots of close ups and hand-held camerawork plus some stunning uses of light. First class. Finally, Braam du Toit gives us a soundtrack of tremendous variety which keeps us on our toes. Very often the music is a counterplay to the action and a violent scene may have classical music or opera, there is a sunny sweet version of Summer Breeze behind a more sinister scene at a summer swimming pool, at other moments the music is rasping and almost menacing.
I’m not sure that every piece worked but to hear a director of music deliberately seeking a contrary effect is indeed unusual and to be admired.
Finally, as a portrait from one side of the divided nation in 1981, this is a worthy piece of art depicting South African history.
4 stars plus
passionfilm 