Five things to watch this week
The Joburg Film Festival is under way at venues around the city until Sunday. Here are five films to catch from this year’s line-up, which features an eclectic selection of local, African and international content to satisfy the cravings of cinema lovers who want to see films that often won’t get another chance to be seen on the big screen.
DEATH OF A WHISTLEBLOWER
SA director Ian Gabriel uses the not insignificant issue of whistleblowers and their often tragic fates in the post-apartheid era as a jumping-off point for his political thriller.
Noxolo Dlamini plays Luyanda, a truth-dedicated journalist who after the murder of her investigative journalist colleague, Stanley (Rob van Vuuren), takes up the investigation he was working on. She finds herself embroiled in a sweeping conspiracy that reaches back into the murky apartheid past and Wouter Basson’s Project Coast, and into the upper echelons of the democratic government.
Her pursuit of the truth will have tragic consequences for many. The results are twisty, dark and pregnant with implications for the current era, in which real-life whistleblowers like Babita Deokaran have seen their bravery rewarded with murder, silence and cover-ups by those in power who will go to terrible lengths to hide their crimes.
SNAKE
The festival’s closing film is a labour of love for director Meg Rickards and writer Tracey Farren, who adapted the script from her own novel.
This coming-of-age drama is set in a depressingly familiar backwater Western Cape town where 9-year-old Stella (Lamiyah Barnard) is trying to navigate the difficulties of life in a family where her father (Keenan Arrison) is rarely sober and her long-suffering mother (Tarryn Wyngaard) never smiles and is ready to leave.
When a mysterious stranger Jerry (Neels van Jaarsveld) arrives in their lives, he at first seems to provide a muchneeded tonic but soon it becomes clear that he is a dangerous snake, threatening to tear apart what little remains of their lives and fragile familial bonds. With chaos erupting around her, it’s left to Stella to find the courage to take matters into her own small hands and fight to save her family.
Building tension through a brooding, foreboding atmosphere, it’s an engaging fable for adults about the suffocating power of lies, but told through the eyes of its complicated and endearing young heroine, who is impressively played by firsttime performer Barnard.
ALL DIRT ROADS TASTE OF SALT
Award-winning poet and photographer Raven Jackson makes her feature film directing debut with a lyrical, poetic meditation that follows decades in the life of a young woman growing up in the verdant landscape of Mississippi.
Unfolding with the slow but profound meditative focus of a Terrence Malick film, the story is told through vignettes that offer a fully realised expression of both the inner world of its protagonist and the outer world that shapes her experiences. Jackson’s innovative use of time — slowing it down, jumping back and forward into it, and allowing it to play out with the shifting sand-like quality of memory — makes for a brief 97minute cinematic experience.
PERFECT DAYS
Veteran German director Wim Wenders finds a welcome return to form in this quietly moving story about a toilet cleaner in Japan.
Kôji Yakusho plays Hirayama, an ageing man who seems content with his simple existence, cleaning toilets in Tokyo. His daily routine is organised and life outside work finds him enjoying the simple pleasures of books, music and exercising his passion for trees, which he takes photographs of.
When a series of unforeseen events disrupt his routine and force him to confront his past, we watch as he quietly takes on these challenges and teaches us what some have aptly described as “Zen and the art of toilet cleaning”. Subtle, visually elegiac and ultimately inspiring, it’s an unsentimental but uplifting lesson in learning to live a well-rounded life by taking time to appreciate the small things, even in the busiest of environments.
EVIL DOES NOT EXIST
Oscar-nominated Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) explores the battle between rural life and ecological corporatism in this understated cautionary tale.
In a village outside Tokyo, Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) and his daughter Hana (Ryo Nishikawa) live a modest life that is dictated by previous generations. When outsiders arrive looking to build a glamping site that will offer city slickers a weekend escape, it becomes clear that their plans will have a negative effect on the water supply and threaten the way of life that Takumi and the villagers have spent so many years preserving.
● The Joburg Film Festival runs until Sunday March 3. For more information go to www.joburgfilmfest.co.za