I totally agree with the review by a reviewer of Variety that the film is never quite as funny, lively or insightful about the creative process as its premise would seem to warrant. Narratively it is messy and the lighting is really problematic. If the film is supposed to be character-driven the poor lighting doesn't enhance the acting and it is sometimes difficult to observe the facial expressions of the actors. Many non-South Africans will have difficulty in following the spoken English in the film and some of the local humor will be lost in the process. I watched the film at the Cape Town World Cinema festival last year. Comments and reactions to the film ranged from unwatchable and sloppy to a welcome departure from the films about our painful past. Unfortunately Bunny Chow won't be remembered as one of the bright lights of the South African New Wave, but some of the remarkable films about our apartheid history will indeed be rated among our best in our 110 year old film history. Not surprisingly the film disappeared from cinemas in Cape Town only two weeks after its release and from most of the cinemas in Durban and Gauteng. It has clearly limited appeal among South African audiences.
Reviews
5 Reviews
Proteus
(2003)
A cinema of marginality
31 August 2004
Post-apartheid cinema is characterized by the emergence of new voices and a diversification of themes. For the first time South African audiences are exposed to certain marginalized communities, including gay and lesbian subcultures. An important milestone in South African feature film-making is Jack Lewis's Proteus, the beginning of a visible gay/lesbian cinema in South Africa. Under apartheid gay and lesbian voices in film and television were also silenced. In a seven year study of the depiction of gays and lesbians in African, Asian and Latin American cinema I have noted that homosexual experience is unique in South Africa, precisely because of our history of racial division and subsequent resistance. Based on a true story, PROTEUS is a period film that raises issues still of enormous relevance today. Historian and filmmaker Jack Lewis was fascinated by a court record in the Cape Archives, dated 18 August 1735, giving judgment in the case of two Robben Island prisoners. Dutch sailor Rijkhaart Jacobsz and Khoe convict Class Blank received extreme sentences for what the court called 'the abominable and unnatural crime of Sodomy'. It is an extremely moving experience and forms part of a very small number of South African productions on homosexuality. Despite a new constitution which prohibits discrimination against gays and lesbians, our images of gay men and women are limited and still on the margin of the film industry. One ends up with less than fifteen short films, a few documentaries, less than five features with openly gay and lesbian characters and virtually no television programmes during the past hundred years of South African cinema!
Promised Land
(2002)
Dealing with a painful past
31 August 2004
Some of the most interesting post apartheid features deal with the response of the (white) Afrikaner community to the new democratic South Africa. One of the most powerful features since 1994 deals with an estranged Afrikaner community of white supremacists. In stark (almost black and white images) Promised Land depicts a desperate minority who, trying to retain their apartheid ideologies in the face of a new, democratic South Africa, have retreated into self-inflicted isolation and marginalization. Brilliantly shot by Giulio Biccarri on Sony's new HD format and masterly edited by Ronelle Loots the film could become one of South Africa's international breakthroughs. When I saw Promised Land for the first time, one realizes again that there has been a bifurcation within (white) Afrikaner culture. There is a clear split between the 'old' and the 'new'. Contemporary Afrikaners have been forced to make a choice after 1994. To choose between racial separation and assimilation and to acknowledge all the ideological ramifications that comes with that decision. Promised Land depicts both sides of this equation. It portrays the death of one era and the birth of another. In doing so Promised Land depicts the advocates of sparest ideology quite cruelly.
One of the best post apartheid documentaries
31 August 2004
The great dance is characterised by stunning visuals. The film is the winner of more than 35 international awards. It is a visual poem on the San hunters, who sustain a small band of nomads in the Kalahari Desert. Strictly speaking not a conventional documentary the filmmakers have inter-cut documentary footage with highly original and semi-abstract material so the hard core of fact is surrounded with lyrical evocations of San legends, creating an intriguing visual texture. Black-and-white footage has been combined with richly coloured images, giving the film a poetic dimension rarely seen in documentaries. The directors, Craig and Damon Foster, have created a sublime visual poem with this film, as well as their latest, Cosmic Africa.
Paljas
(1997)
Film magic from South Africa
31 August 2004
The greatest feature to emerge thus far from South Africa (since 1994) is Katinka Heyns's Paljas. The narrative occurs in the 1960s, when poverty amongst Afrikaners was a serious problem and the South African Railway a key mechanism in Afrikaner affirmative action. This excellent Afrikaans language drama follows the deterioration of an Afrikaner family isolated and shunned in the small community of Toorwater. Nothing seems to happen. Then a circus train loses its way and comes to rest in Toorwater, and a mysterious clown brings fresh magic to the stagnating family, but he also poses a threat to the rest of the community. Heyns brilliantly succeeds in creating a metaphor for the Afrikaner family's turbulent emotional, cultural and ideological journey from the darkness of apartheid back into the light of post-apartheid reconciliation (famililial, cultural and political).
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