Fresh smell of dirty laundry
CRIME COMEDY: A FUNNY CHASE THROUGH JOBURG’S STREETS
A new take on South African comedy.
It’s not easy to make a film in South Africa – audiences are fickle when it comes to locally made productions. There’s no budget to create eye-popping special effects rivalling the Jurrasic Parks and Star Wars of the world, no matter how big the injection from the department of trade and industry, corporates and media sponsors.
However, what we do have is great storytellers, and Vuil Wasgoed is a film that really shows how well some of us can whip up believable cinematic stories without relying on Schuster-esque crutches – which is heavy on dimwitted slapstick, cheap laughs and grotesque caricatures of Afrikaans folks, as well as ordinary South Africans.
Vuil Wasgoed delivers a polished production with a fresh brand of humour that is clever, with fleshed-out characters – a great departure from the atrocious films that have been released this year.
The coherent production makes sense – Vuil Wasgoed has been adapted from a short film by Bouwer Bosch and Bennie Viljoen released in 2014 at the Silwerskermfees. With the freedom of a feature-length script in 2017, Fourie expanded the Vuil Wasgoed universe established in 2014, into one that’s joyously outrageous, extremely watchable but, above all, satisfying.
Not only did he write a good script, he wrote a good script in Afrikaans. While Fourie provided the words, Bosch penned
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Cast: Bennie Fourie, Bouwer Bosch and Tim Theron Director: Morné du Toit Classification: 16LV
many of the films one-liners and puns – showing what a good collaboration can do for the energy of a film.
Bosch and Fourie met each other at the North-West University and first starred together in 2015’s Mooirivier. On set, they conceived the plot for the Vuil Wasgoed short film – which secured them funding to develop this year’s release.
They are a formidable comedy duo. Fourie stars as Kevin, a control freak, while Bosch portrays the party-loving Wim. During the day the two work at a laundromat, but at night they borrow clients’ clothes, trading the spin cycles for strobe lights. But when they find a finger in a jacket pocket one night, they have cops, gangsters and smugglers chasing their tails. It’s a heart-pounding ride through the streets of Joburg at night as the two try to prove their innocence in a fun, coming-of-age film. Director Morné du Toit did a stellar job of creating an exciting world under the streetlights. Familiar faces from the short film also return, including Simoné Nortmann, Leandie du Randt-Bosch and Stiaan Smith. Rounding out the feature-length cast are Nico Panagio (with a triumphant return to the big screen), Charlie Bouguenon, Louis Minnaar, Hannes Brümmer, Christel van den Bergh and Je-ani Swiegelaar. Vuil Wasgoed is an Afrikaans joyride from start to finish with jokes flying at you quicker than AfriForum’s Ernst Roets can start an SMS petition.