CINEMA: Bafana Khumalo=20
SOWETO GREEN is one of those new South African hot=20 potatoes which make newspaper editors want to send black=20 reviewers to critique the film as opposed to white=20 reviewers, lest whities hate it and be accused of=20 racism. This is because the scriptwriter, Mfundi Vundla,=20 is a very well connected brother who cut his teeth in=20 the craft of putting images and words together while=20 exiled in the United States. =20
As a black reviewer, however, there is the danger of=20 being accused of being the useful idiot of white=20 liberals and articulating their racist hidden agendas.=20 The other alternative is to see the movie and, with=20 reconstruction and development in mind, say it was a=20 brilliant presentation that heralds the resuscitation of=20 the local motion picture industry despite any flaws it=20 might contain. =20
This movie should not be saddled with such a burden,=20 though, for it does not even attempt to be anything=20 beyond an entertaining little flick that looks at our=20 little society with a slightly jaundiced eye. The basic=20 story is about a returning exile who is filled with=20 lofty ideas about teaching the people of Mshenguville=20 the value of environmental activism. The exile, played=20 by John Kani, is met by apathy and sometimes hostility=20 in a community that is more interested in meeting its=20 day-to-day needs than in planting trees. =20
From=20this start Mvundla goes on to explore the many=20 potentially humorous situations that exist in our=20 fledgling democracy, from the returnee’s American wife=20 who approvingly nods when the taxi taking them from the=20 airport passes the suburbs on its way to a squatter=20 camp, to affirmative action and inter-racial=20 relationships. =20
The movie has some really hilarious moments, as in the=20 exchange where our hero admits to not having children=20 because he “shoots blanks”. When one character says she=20 has been studying broadcast journalism overseas, her=20 white fiance interjects and informs us that she is going=20 to have her own talk show — “it’s going to be a show=20 for heavy drinkers, called Dop Level”. There is a=20 certain charming, ethnic Afrikaner working-class humour=20 in that line.=20
At other times, it becomes a strange, Leon Schuster- esque nightmare with a black point of view. Early in the=20 movie there is a strange hijacking sequence in which a=20 lot of white folks attempt to come to the rescue with=20 firepower that would make Joe Modise green with envy.=20 Schuster will be proud to discover that some of his=20 techniques have worked their way to the dark end of the=20
Soweto Green is a nice mass-circulation flick that=20 should not be seen as anything other than that. It is=20 funny at times; at other times it makes one wonder why=20 we even try to make movies in this country — maybe we=20 should just curl up and die.=20
Incidentally, I hated it.=20