I once asked Oliver Schmitz to define himself and he said: ‘I’m a depressive with a sense of humour. In fact, I suppose I’m a space cadet.”
I first became aware of Schmitz in the 1980s when he was the hottest deejay in Cape Town at Scratch nightclub. A Michaelis art graduate, he was the hippest guy in town, especially when he made his landmark feature-film debut, Mapantsula, in 1988.
The movie, which has proved to be one of the most well-travelled and respected South African Struggle films of all time, starred the late Thomas Mogotlane as a small-time crook who is touched by politics when arrested for a petty crime and dumped in a cell with township militants.
It took more than 13 years for the lanky, softly spoken director to make his next feature, Hijack Stories, which had Tony Kogoroge playing an actor who needs to land the part of a gangster in a local movie, and who is forced to move from the coddled buppie world of Rosebank and reimmerse himself in township culture.
The role-reversal thriller comically explored the urban realities of the new South Africa and was way ahead of its time. Critically praised, Schmitz was fêted by Hollywood agents who loved the film. ‘We can do a lot for you,” they said. ‘Bring a print to LA and we’ll get you work.” But what they really wanted was to remake the film in the United States.
Huge success
Schmitz turned down the offer and, after struggling to get several South African movies off the ground, including a biopic of Robert McBride, he decided to move to Germany where he was offered the reins of a German made-for-TV movie called Das Beste Stück (The Best Piece). He grabbed the chance, realising that he was dividing his career path by working as an editor in between directing gigs.
The romantic comedy — about a man who is so neurotic about the size of his penis that he evades the woman he is truly in love with — was a huge success and secured a place in the top 10 of all-time largest TV audiences in Germany.
Schmitz made several more comedies for German television and, although a director for hire, managed to imbue the films with his gentle, ironic sensibility. In fact his success in the genre led to him start two hugely successful television series, Turkish for Beginners and Doctor’s Diary, which became cult hits.
He told me that people are often amazed that he works in such a wide spectrum, ‘from intense dramatic cinema to light and whimsical comedy. For me I find it comes naturally. The comedy has given me fulfilment as a director and I realise that laughter is just as important and poignant — and it does not betray the more rigorous examination of our existence in the work I have done in South Africa. In fact, far from making me lazy as a director, the television work helped me hone my talents.”
Emotive, beautifully calibrated piece
His return to South Africa with Life, Above All has been marked by praise and success. Based on Allan Stratton’s novel, Chanda’s Secrets, which was first published in 2004 to international acclaim, Schmitz’s film of the book received a 10-minute standing ovation at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, was honoured with the prestigious Prix François Chalais for ‘life-affirming” cinema and was South Africa’s submission for this year’s Academy Awards. A fortnight ago it swept the boards at the South African Film and Television Awards (Safta).
It’s an emotive, beautifully calibrated piece with stand-out performances from first-time actors. Schmitz said: ‘It isn’t an Aids movie. It’s a very moving drama about a mother-daughter relationship tested by taboo, illness and lies.” Shot entirely in Pedi around Elandsdoorn, a township in Mpumalanga, the movie tells of 12-year-old Chanda — played by first-timer Khomotso Manyaka — whose family is ravaged by the disease. No name is given to the illness striking down her family and, with her world falling apart, she tries to make sense of it and of the secrets, lies and social stigma.
Manyaka, who was spotted by talent scouts during a choir performance at her school, is a natural screen star, her eyes burning with intelligence and compassion. She receives excellent support from the other local discovery, Keaobaka Makanyane, as Esther, a loyal friend with a more hard-nosed view of the world.
On hearing about the film I feared a worthy NGO drama, best suited for some nation-building show on television, but Schmitz has made a truly moving piece, which in its final moments rejects sentiment and preachiness for a truly cinematic ride.
When I asked about the earnestness of the subject matter, Schmitz said: ‘I do not agree that Chanda’s Secrets is like an NGO movie on paper. The book moved me incredibly and inspired me. The depths of the mother-daughter relationship convinced me that it was an interesting project.
South African talent
“Because of the social issues in the story, it could be interpreted as an NGO movie, sure, but that depends on the ambition and staging of the project at the end of the day. The challenge for me was to take it away from the label of ‘issue movie’.”
He was unable to attend the Safta ceremony because he is in pre-production for an adaptation of Russian deejay Wladimir Kaminer’s cult novel, Russendisko, a collection of satirical short stories published in 2000 that was a surprise bestseller in Germany. But in a letter read out by Manyaka, he said: ‘I am very proud of the movie, the fabulous actors and team, the fact that I could make a South African movie again and one that I am so passionate about. In all my local films I fight primarily for South African talent, which I believe is at least as good as anywhere else.”