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- Volume 11, Issue 1, 2019
Journal of African Cinemas - Volume 11, Issue 1, 2019
Volume 11, Issue 1, 2019
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Outsiders, fairy tales and rainbowism in South African comedies: Soweto Green: This is a ‘Tree’ Story (Lister, 1995) and Fanie Fourie’s Lobola (Pretorius, 2013)
By Norita MdegeThis article uses a sociological approach to analyse David Lister’s Soweto Green: This is a ‘Tree’ Story (1995) and Henk Pretorius’ Fanie Fourie’s Lobola (2013). Although both films, made nearly twenty years apart, fall under the broad category of ‘rainbow nation’ comedies, they indicate a shift in the representations and understanding of South African identities from the highly politicized identities of the 1990s to the emergence of hybrid identities. This shift provides insights into the ways in which post-apartheid South African society has evolved, while at the same time maintaining some continuities. Analysing comedies is particularly useful because the success of comedy depends highly on the social perceptions and world-views of the audience. Thus, comedies can provide great insights into the economic and sociopolitical conditions of the societies within which they emerge. The article will also explore the ideological implications of embedding rainbowism within fairy-tale romances.
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Unsettling the ‘New’? Apartheid Did Not Die (Lowery, 1998)
More LessThe documentary film Apartheid Did Not Die (Lowery, 1998) raises a theoretical problematic concerning the nature of historical change. In this article, an attempt is made to understand how the film represents the ‘post’ in the post-apartheid era, particularly with regard to its premises about historical change in societies that have recently emerged from an oppressive past, and the responses that the film occasioned. I show that through narrative and documentary strategies, Apartheid Did Not Die institutes a singular temporal rhythm for South Africa and is as such a metanarrative. Yet, it is as a metanarrative that the film occasioned a wide array of public engagements. Though powerful and provocative, the film’s arguments point to the limits of generalizing analyses and polemical modes of representation. However, its generalizing tone also shows the productivity of polemic as occasioned by the public responses it brought into being. Considering the theoretically problematic elements of the documentary form offers a critical perspective on the responses the film elicited in the public sphere.
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Resistance documentaries in post-apartheid South Africa: Dear Mandela (Kell and Nizza, 2012) and Miners Shot Down (Desai, 2014)
More LessDuring apartheid, a documentary film movement emerged, capturing ordinary people taking on the oppressive government and the exploitative capitalist industry. People were shown at work and in their communities organizing strikes, protesting against repression, and being subjected to violence. This grassroots film movement, which has been described as a cinema of resistance, served as a tool to educate viewers, document violence and inequality, and mobilize support against the apartheid regime. Two decades after the end of apartheid, a similar set of resistance films has begun to emerge – with the difference that these films are holding the democratically elected government accountable. These documentaries give voice to the disenfranchised masses for whom the multiracial democracy has not brought substantial change. The African National Congress-led government has sanctioned actions echoing those that occurred under apartheid, including forced removals and the massacre of protestors.
Two films, Dear Mandela (Kell and Nizza, 2012) and Miners Shot Down (Desai, 2014), capture this and are indicative of a new wave of resistance documentaries.
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Unravelling Pretville (Korsten, 2012) and encountering Marikana: The superfluous cheer of the Afrikaner volksiel
More LessDrawing on the thought of Achille Mbembé and Jacques Rancière, I observe the spatiotemporal proximity of the Marikana massacre and the production of an Afrikaans musical called Pretville (‘Funville’), attempting to understand the intricate dialectics of othering. I specifically consider the persistence of this mechanism in the ‘Afrikaner volksiel’, a metaphysical construct ostensibly uniting white Afrikaans speakers. To this end, I contextualize Pretville within the larger Afrikaner cultural project before maintaining that the text exhibits a fervent forgetfulness of the South African socio-political landscape. It is thus an aporetic text in that it deconstructs itself through the presences implied in their very invisibility, particularly the present-absence of the racialized labour exploitation buttressing an affluent neo-liberal society. I conclude that, through this entanglement, the world of Marikana is inseparable from the world of Pretville.
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Reviews
Authors: Lindiwe Dovey and Pier Paolo FrassinelliGaze Regimes: Film and Feminisms in Africa, Jyoti Mistry and Antje Schuhmann (eds) (2015) Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 264 pp., ISBN-10 186-8-14856-4, p/bk, $26.87
Contemporary Cinema of Africa and the Diaspora, Anjali Prabhu (2014) Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, ISBN 978-1-40519-303-0, 261 pp., p/bk, $40.95
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Film Review
More LessNoem my Skollie: Call me Thief (DIR. Daryne Joshua, August 2016) South Africa: Maxi-D TV Productions
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