What’s the fascinating thing about making documentaries,” says director/
producer Liza Key, “you start at one point, but never know where you’re going to end up”.In 2001 Key was asked to make a documentary about Wouter Basson, head of South Africa’s chemical warfare division during the apartheid era. “I didn’t really want to do it and I resisted,” she admits, “but I felt I should.” She thought it would be hard to get close to her subject matter, but she began to research the project with Marlene Burger and Chandre Gould. The result is a documentary, The Man Who Knows Too Much, that touches on many important issues — and yet it doesn’t really pin down
its subject. “I never got an interview with Basson,” says Key. “I met with him numerous times, but he always refused an interview.” In 2002, after Basson’s long trial, he was acquitted of atrocities. Key had hoped that once the trial was over she would be able to interview him on camera. She had been strung along during the trial by Basson, who implied that there would eventually be an interview. “I waited two and a half years,” says Key, “but at the end of the day he still wouldn’t talk.” The documentary revolves around Key’s attempt to find out what happened to 200 South West African People’s Organisation (Swapo) soldiers who disappeared from a South African Defence Force prisoner-of-war camp in the early 1980s. Key suspects that Basson is responsible for the disappearance of the 200. If he is not, who is? The film includes court recordings from the trial —
confessions, interviews with bio-engineers, and a state witness who admits to killing “terrorists”. She also talks to former South African Defence Force head Constand Viljoen, who tosses aside any accountability by simply saying that “everyone obeyed orders”. But who gave those orders? Key tried to meet other generals, but was thwarted. In the documentary, she travels to Namibia and meets an ex-recce called Charlie, who was a Swapo cadre imprisoned in a border prisoner-of-war camp. It’s the closest Key can get to finding out what happened in such camps and it’s heart-wrenching. But there is no direct relationship between him and Basson: Key’s approach is indirect and somewhat obscure.”It wasn’t difficult to be subjective,” says Key. “I’m interested to know why he [Basson] did the things he did. My fascination is about
what produces a man like this.” Key says she appreciated Basson’s relative frankness, but still she failed to find the answers. Relatively little information is presented that one hasn’t already come across in the press. “It was a very difficult film to make,” Key says. Unable to gain access to most of the major players or to state witnesses, Key ended up with a film to construct and edit without footage of any of the people she had set out to make the film about. “It’s a process that normally develops,” says Key, “but here I was stuck in the same place for two years, hitting blank walls and getting no access.” Key wants viewers to make up their own minds: “It was supposed to be a film about Basson, but it looks at the much broader issues of responsibility. If he’s innocent, who is guilty?” she asks. Everyone in the film passes the buck. “In making the film, I wanted to in a way honour the 200 Swapo prisoners who have been left nameless and forgotten. This is where it led me,” says Key. “Documentaries take you down certain paths,” she notes, and not always the expected path. Ultimately, for Key, the experience of making The Man Who Knows Too Much was “hugely frustrating” — and, indeed, watching it is frustrating. Although thought-provoking, it presents more questions than answers.
Related article: The Man Who Knows Too Much
The Man Who Knows Too Much airs on SABC1 on June 23 at 10pm