“A boy called Hope” — that’s the tagline for Themba, a new South African movie (and German co-production) about a boy who has a pretty dreadful life until … Well, that would be giving away the ending, wouldn’t it? But I may have to give away more than the ending if I am to discuss Themba in a more than superficial way.
In fact, I hesitated already at the word “about” in the paragraph above. What is Themba “about”? On the narrative level, you could say it’s about a poor boy from the Eastern Cape who overcomes adversity to become a professional football player. On the thematic level (and this is always the tricky one) you could say it’s about family, but that’s not saying much; you could say it’s about life for poor people in South Africa, which makes it potentially interesting, or you could say it’s about HIV/Aids.
Because the thematic kind of “about” is always the most dignified kind of aboutness, and because HIV/Aids is such an important thing to be about, let us say Themba tries to deal with HIV/Aids as well as family, poverty and so on, by telling an overcoming-adversity story. The problem is that the different kinds of aboutness, narrative and thematic, don’t exactly cohere in Themba, so it feels rather forced as a story, and the rhetoric of redemption is as pat as the speech Themba himself delivers at the end.
It’s certainly very messagey, without there being a clear message in the sense of a take-home moral-of-the-story, unless it’s “Don’t get raped”. But perhaps I’m being unfair. It could just as well have the moral “Be aware of HIV/Aids” or “Don’t be ashamed of being HIV-positive”, which are good morals to have. “Be aware …” is pretty vague, though. If the message is “Don’t be ashamed”, you could say the film has a structural problem trying to overcome the stigma while not wanting the protagonist to be actually responsible in any meaningful way for being infected in the first place.
Maybe it’s really a problem about agency in such historical circumstances — circumstances in which many, even most, South Africans find themselves today. But a redemptive, feel-good story (which is what Themba wants to be) requires agency on the part of at least the main characters if we the audience are to feel that the human spirit, whatever that is, has triumphed once more.
Knowing only that it’s a South African story about a boy who becomes a star football player, you could predict much of what happens in Themba, or at least its overall outline. You know there are going to be traumas, obstacles to overcome, and so forth, and of course a climactic game. In that, it conforms to the shape of the uplifting sports movie. But that storyline is profoundly destabilised by HIV/Aids — a really massive obstacle to have to “overcome” — and, to find a happy ending, the narrative has to split into two divergent streams.
I think Themba is actually a tragedy, or at least a tragic story, disguised as a feel-good movie. If it’s about poverty, it depicts it rather than discusses it. It’s the donnée rather than the issue. Themba avoids making any political comments whatsoever, and in fact makes poverty look quite idyllic — it’s statedly set in the Eastern Cape. The spot upon which Themba’s family’s rather cute hut is placed looks ideal for a large high-rise hotel. Still, most of what happens in the film is tragic. The football storyline reads like an add-on fantasy.
All that said, it must also be said that Themba is put together at a very high standard of filmmaking, at least on the technical front. And, more than anything else, the performances shine through the muddled thematics and the often over-pretty cinematography. In particular, Nat “Junior” Singo as Themba, Simphiwe Dana as his mother and Patrick Mofokeng (in a difficult role) really do wonderful work here. They feel so natural, so easy in front of the camera, and the ways they inhabit their roles are so heartfelt that one almost wants to call Themba a good film for their sakes alone.