Watch The Wound — now
The reaction to John Trengove’s film about the Xhosa tradition of Ukwaluka has slyly changed from indignation to admiration, writes
In recent years the politically correct and culturally sensitive have been quick to pounce on ideas they don’t like the sound of before they’ve seen the actual product of those ideas. Thus it was that the first, angry and outraged reaction to John Trengove’s film Inxeba: The Wound began to be published last year on the opinion pages of newspapers by writers who felt that the idea of a film about the age-old Xhosa tradition of Ukwaluka, featuring several homosexual characters and directed by a white man, was an insult to Xhosa culture which could not go unchallenged.
Most of those writers had seen little more than a trailer for the film. Since the film has begun to screen both here and internationally, the reaction to it has slyly changed from indignation to admiration for its acting and underplayed, layered examination of masculinity.
And finally, it was nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards – an accolade which it unfortunately and unfairly failed to receive.
The reasons for this change in attitude have everything to do with Trengove’s sensitive direction and the superbly understated, complex performance of Nakhane (nee Toure). The screenplay, by Trengove, Thando Mgqolozana and Malusi Bengu, steers clear of anthropological exoticisation and judgment in favour of taking on the bigger challenge of exploring universal issues of the shaping of masculinities and the conflicts between tradition and modernity.
PILGRIMAGE TO THE MOUNTAINS
It’s an all too relatable coming-of-age story with a tragic romance at its centre and piercing questions about what makes men men at its heart.
Xolani (Nakhane) is a young, quiet and seemingly timid Queenstown factory worker who makes an annual pilgrimage to the mountains ostensibly to serve as a caregiver to new initiates, but actually to rekindle his long-running illicit affair with fellow caregiver and married man Vija (Bongile Mantsai).
This year, however, Xolani’s increasingly desperate and lopsided relationship with Vija is thrown into chaos by his initiate Kwanda (Niza Jay), a mollycoddled rich boy from the suburbs with a fiery contempt for both the Ukwaluka ritual and his caregiver’s refusal to acknowledge his own true nature.
The details of the ritual seem faithfully and respectfully observed, but they are only a backdrop to the story. Trengove reserves judgment on their correctness in favour of an intimate portrayal of the struggles of his characters to reconcile the ideas of manhood that the time in the mountains is supposed to have instilled in them with the realities of the world they live in.
CHALLENGING HYPOCRISY
Trengove sidesteps the potential melodrama of a story with three different types of gay characters by keeping things understated and mostly implied rather than offering on-the-nose pointers. The intimacy of the relationships is presented in quiet but claustrophobic focus, which keeps us wholly engaged and is helped by strong performances.
As Kwanda becomes increasingly outspoken, self assured and challenging of the rituals and the hypocrisy of the relationship between Xolani and Vija, the film moves tightly towards its one false note — a story climax, which seems a little and unnecessarily contrived.
In spite of that the final product is a sensitively executed and true dissection of fundamentally important and all too often unspoken contradictions in the traditionally upheld ideas of what constitutes manhood, which exposes their fragility and illogical underpinnings.
Xolani’s struggle is not just that of a gay man afraid of his true self but of all men who pretend to be what they are not. In that sense it’s a fitting testament to Trengove and his team that this is both a very South African story and a truly universal one, which lingers long after its 88 minutes and reminds us that there’s a big difference between judging an idea and its execution.
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Inxeba: The Wound is on circuit.