Home’s where the hurt is . . .
SINK is a gut-wrenching portrait of loss, guilt and reconciliation. That’s not reconciliation in the sense of forgiveness, but more along the lines of, how do I reconcile the broken pieces of my life to move forward?
It is also an uncomfortabe look at the smothering maid/madam relationship as it plays out in so many South African homes. It tracks the relationship between these two women who live in each others’ space, know each others’ intimate details, but have a very uneven power dynamic.
The film starts as Michelle (Alexander) and Chris (Bessenger) tell Rachel (Mokgapa, pictured) that they would understand if she didn’t want to return to work. But, Rachel indicates she will come back and the three part ways. You soon work out that Rachel’s daughter has died and they all feel it keenly.
The film then moves along two parallel tracks, showing the three in the now and flickering back to when the girl was alive, pitting the two times against each other.
Here, meticulous colour grading is a subtle hint as to which time track you are watching.
Michelle and Chris’s home is leeched of intense colours, and Rachel spends her days following the same cleaning routine. The only colour in Rachel’s life seems to be when her little one was around.
Just to complicate matters, Michelle’s difficult pregnancy is keeping her at home and Chris struggles to draw her out of her growing depression.
While the three live in the same space, they live their own lives, and despite having shared the tragedy of the child’s death, there is no communication around how they feel.
Alexander is restrained, while Bessenger is a mix of bewildered support and unvoiced hope.
Mokgapa is a study of grief and torn loyalty – she has a stillness about her that screams pain and the inability to do something, about it. Rachel’s existence was wrapped up in her job that supports her family in Mozambique and her little daughter, but now it is hard to focus.
Chris Letcher’s spare score supports the emotional tone rather than telling you what you are supposed to feel, just as the film gives you a scenario and makes you question how you’d deal with it. THIS documentary charts the story of a group of Afrikaners who left the country and settled in Patagonia a century ago.
The 100-year-old community of Afrikaans speakers is diminishing as the third and fourth generations marry into the Spanish-speaking Patagonian community, but they aren’t bitter about it – rather sad. The older generations identify themselves as African, while the younger ones see themselves as Patagonian.
Director and cinematographer, Gregory, interviews several people and then follows one family as they contact their South African cousins, eventually travelling around our country.
We also meet various people who speak Afrikaans to varying degrees of proficiency, which fascinates a visiting linguistics professor, Andries Coetzee, from the University of Michigan, no end. He travels to Patagonia with the express purpose of recording their language skills to research how linguistic drift of South African Afrikaans speakers compares to what they speak in Patagonia, which is closer to Afrikaans from 100 years ago.
The documentary is a thoughtful portrait of a dying cultural grouping lamenting its loss even as the people embraces the change.
Boere op die Aardsdrempel shows at these cinemas and releases on DVD on Tues: The Labia, today to Thurs: The Showroom Theatre, Prince Albert, on March 31, April 2; Cinemuse, Stellenbosch on April 7.