Calvinia review – jarringly nostalgic look at a South African childhood
Situated in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, Calvinia is a rural town blessed with a magnificently scenic landscape, where towering mountain ranges give way to far-reaching plains. It is also the birthplace of film-maker Rudivan der Merwe, whose documentary ode, with its triptych structure guided by childhood memories, is both a pilgrimage and farewell to his home town.
Van der Merwe first fixes his camera on his parents, who were livestock ranchers. In contrast to the supposed quaintness of farm life, the presence of violence is also emphasised; one scene, for instance, lingers on a goat being slaughtered. There are other forces of violence at play as well. Conversations with a lesbian couple reveal the homophobia that runs deep in the town.
The film falters, however, when Van der Merwe switches focus from his white family to the Black ex-employees of his father’s farm. Following Koba, a domestic worker in his mother’s employ, the section does grapple with issues faced by Black South Africans such as financial precariousness and addiction. Still, these struggles are framed as a personal saga rather than an example of systematic inequality. In his nostalgic mood, Van der Merwe seems unable to fully reckon with the power imbalance between his parents and the former staff.
The final segment, which mostly features the director’s musings on his own sexual awakening, similarly betrays a lack of critical introspection. Van der Merwe speaks of a boyhood incident where he was coerced by his schoolmates into performing a sexual act on his best friend. He added that nothing happened as he was unable to achieve an erection, but it is still unsettling that the film-maker would swiftly move on from this anecdote, instead of fully considering the abuse such an event involved. Such missteps reduce Calvinia to a picturesque but ultimately lightweight trip down memory lane.
• Calvinia is on True Story from 22 March.