ELIZABETH DONALDSON previews the four half-hour television films selected for M-Net’s annual homegrown film competition
AFTER two years, M-Net’s clumsy duckling has emerged a glorious swan. Gone is the fluffy, ungainly waddle of the annual New Directions competition; the baby is fast maturing and is set to take flight across your TV screens this winter. During July and August, M-Net will be raising temperatures with the four short films produced for this, their primary film development project. Selected from some 250 entries, this year’s films are a surprisingly dynamic showcase for South African talent.
Rooted within various local sub-cultures, the series is uniquely and proudly South African. In the same breath it has had to, as with most developing cinema, make use of the experience of the international film arena to invigorate the work. Stray Bullet is directed by Patrick Shai, who has an international stage career. Stimulation is the product of UCLA graduate (and Mail & Guardian film critic) Andrew Worsdale and The Return is directed by Jeremy Handler, who cut his celluloid incisors at the same school. All of them are South Africans exposed to other trends and traditions, providing a more eclectic style — and some significant film- making.
In addition, the budget for this season’s films was substantially higher than previously, encouraging, for example, the introduction of decently composed music scores. Input by the BBC’s single drama editor, Claire Hirsch, has also added value and sophistication to the series.
Patrick Shai’s Stray Bullet is his first stint behind the camera, directing Soweto-born Harvey Chochoe’s script. The first film to be screened on M-Net, it’s a frantic, high-impact saga that follows the trail of a gun as it changes hands across the length and breadth of Johannesburg’s underbelly.
This is Quentin Tarantino without dialogue — from the squalor of a giant garbage unit where a young street-child finds treasure “from heaven” to the opulence of a northern suburbs bunker where a yuppie S&M convert struts his stuff — all drawn together by the menacing presence of the gun. The bloody conclusion is unsentimental, yet powerful enough to serve as a modern parable.
Melancholy, violence and loss sustain the film throughout its arduous course and the camera movement is innovative, reiterating the pace as well as a fundamental sense of dislocation. Yet somehow, although Shai knows how to coax good performances from his actors, the narrative remains somewhat monochromatic and flat on delivery.
The second film to be screened is Jeremy Handler’s The Return. This deals with the tensions of a young Muslim woman who marries into a hostile Hindu family. Her alienation carries the audience into an overwhelming labyrinth of custom and mysticism, lured by hypnotic sequences of colour and symbols. The film is as bright and stylised as a kaleidoscope; a perfectly kitsch Indian icon that is also rich in reference.
Handler’s treatment of Hurban’s script — which he describes as “incredibly visual” — is at times nothing short of masterly. Every shot is a still- life, often sublime enough to make the dialogue superfluous. Centred around Diwali — the Indian festival of light — the film treats its theme of life and death with an archetypal sense of beauty.
Then there is Stimulation, the work of the youngest scriptwriter in the series, Alexander Sudheim. Directed by Worsdale, it’s a rollercoaster ride through the teenage experience and is as entertaining and disturbing as any good ride ought to be. The audience hangs on for dear life, swept along on a psychedelic wave of sex, drugs and raves.
The seemingly questionable morality of the young characters’ lifestyle pales when set against the banal hypocrisy of accepted adult choices. Drug- induced stupors that float and scintillate with gold sequins and bubbles and Walt Disney fish, and the freedom of a long, dusty road, are an inevitable preference to middle-class normality. The techno- taal teacher is a wonderfully disturbed attempt to bridge teenage anarchy with adult responsibility. Stimulation is the Nineties’ answer to Grease. It’s a film rich in colour that also boasts a camera style as animated as the action it frames.
The final film in the series, Angel, is a sensitive portrayal of two bergies eking out life on a Cape Town square. The dialogue is vividly authentic, with insults colourful enough to curdle milk. The script also captures the melancholy and frustration of the characters’ circumstances and the empathy that the film inspires is in itself a triumph.
The very obvious absence of an angel in the action — unless one assumes that the wine has grown wings — is a pleasantly esoteric touch. But, although Angel is an interesting piece with two wonderful performances and some powerful messages, it lacks a dynamism essential to the entertainment quality of film. And the music, although emotive, is intrusive.
If art mirrors life, it would appear that South Africa is a colourful, crazy circus — rich in character and action. It is also dangerous and absurd and oscillates between the sublime and the ridiculous. It is simultaneously human and grotesque, seductive and revolting. The films reflect violence, fear, disintegration and decay. Yet they are also profoundly humane and, humorous – — in all a monument to the South African spirit.
With any luck, New Directions will soon be making waves at the New York Film Festival and the London Festival. The concept was so well received that Filmnet (M-Net’s European affiliate) has introduced a similar project in Poland.
And now, for the first time, M-Net intends following up the New Directions initiative with two full- length feature films that will be selected from the work of writers and directors they have established through the competition. These productions should be ready for the international market by the latter half of 1997 and may become one of the very few ways that talented South African film-makers will ever get to see their dreams become celluloid.
M-Net will be screening the New Directions films on Fridays at 7.30pm. Stray Bullet is on July 12, The Return on July 19, Stimulation on July 26 and Angel on August 2