Having viewed the film The Swenkas, by Jeppe Rønde, in response to a request by the Encounters Documentary Film Festival organisers, it is clear that this film raises some pertinent questions: Can foreigners (Rønde is Danish) make credible films about South Africa? And, where does one draw the line between fiction and documentary, between emphasising the aesthetic aspect of film or the political?
As one letter writer wrote to the Mail & Guardian: ”I’d understood that this was a South African documentary — not a piece of Danish confectionery, made by Danes, with Danish funding. South Africans can do better than this — we’ve got blood in our veins, not syrup …”
The festival organisers see the issue as thus: ”The representation of people in films, particularly documentaries, has always been a topic for, often, heated debate. ”This is the role of Encounters — to provide the platform and material for question and debate. We knew that The Swenkas, which has garnered numerous festival awards in Europe and North America, would spark debate here — not only about representation of a South African subculture, but the very notion of what a ‘documentary’ is.
”The Swenkas also prompts questions for the South African documentary industry about funding, distribution and particularly SA documentary films as products for ‘export’.”
Rønde himself says: ”I don’t believe in the division between fiction and documentary. A movie must move people and tell them about life.”
In brief, the film deals with a group of men who take part in fashion competitions, in part to alleviate the drudgery of their lives as mineworkers. The Swenkas shows that these workers have dreams that go beyond earning a living, that despite the migrant labour system they’ve inherited, there’s a wisdom and humanity that reflect aspirations for a better life. The objection raised is that the characters have been ”dehumanised”, and that ”the audience would think that poverty, patriarchy and the migrant labour system and life in the rural areas, are all actually okay in a soulfully charming way”.
The central question is whether poverty and hardship should be aestheticised in any way. For starters, one only need look at the Italian neorealists such as Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione or La Terra Trema or Vittorio de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves or Umberto D to see that an aesthetic approach to moviemaking is more likely to enhance the political message and make it stick, whereas if you make a movie hammering home a political message at the expense of visual and narrative refinement, you run the risk not only of undermining any political raison d’être behind the movie, but you’ve also most likely made an indifferent movie. (The recently released Zulu Love Letter is a case in point.)
If you take the film beyond the confines of its locale and place in history by creating a visual language that is universally understandable, your film stands a better chance of being remembered, and any socio-political message will be that much more accessible and enduring. Rønde’s film is hardly blind to the situation of mineworkers, rural poverty and the like, but he doesn’t feel the need to spell out the obvious.
His film doesn’t create victims, rather it shows individuals making a valiant attempt at taking control of their lives. He uses ample film time to illustrate the alienation arising out of the capitalist system, and aptly contrasts this with the quiet heroism of the men when they become swenkas (swankers) after hours, thus enhancing their individuality and dignity.
As to foreigners making films about South Africa, heaven knows a lot of rubbish has been made by South Africans and foreigners alike, so we should be only too happy when foreigners or South Africans make films of enduring value, such as The Swenkas.
Wilhelm Snyman is a freelance film critic and lecturer at the University of Cape Town school of languages and literature