Local film made good
A REASONABLE MAN
Gavin Hood is the writer, producer, director, and star of a new - entirely local - gem of a movie called "A Reasonable Man".
After an impressive, little-seen short film titled "The Shopkeeper", South African filmmaker Gavin Hood returns with a mature debut feature about a young herd-boy charged with the murder of a one-year-old baby, and the haunted lawyer who defends him.
Ever since D.W. Griffith filmed "The Zulu's Heart" in 1908, films set in Africa have depicted the black man in one of two fashions. Peter Davis calls these stereotypical character traits "the savage other" and "the faithful servant". The black man is either shown as a dangerous threat to the peaceful existence of the white man, or becomes indebted to the white man who is seen as a mentor/saviour of some kind. Even Hollywood is responsible for displaying the black man largely as a source of amiable conflict for the white lead in countless "buddy" movies.
Hollywood's remedy to the black man's "buddy" movie plight was the '80s rise of independent filmmaker, Spike Lee. Lee elevated black characters into leads, determined to tell distinctly black stories. Two South African filmmakers, Thomas Mogotlane and Oliver Schmitz, followed suit with the brilliant movie about a township gangster called Panic in 1988's "Mapantsula".
"A Reasonable Man" may suffer from the heritage of "the faithful servant" and the white man as saviour, but - that aside - it can stand tall alongside "Mapantsula" as one of the country's finest films ever made.
The film opens with an explosive hook, involving a South African soldier called Shaun (Hood) in the Angolan bush. After we witness a shocking event that transforms Shaun's life forever, we flash forward 10 years to KwaZulu-Natal where Shaun is vacationing with his wife (Hood's real-life spouse, Janine Eser). The couple have recently returned from a long hiatus in Britain.
It is during his vacation that Shaun meets local herd-boy Sipho ( Loyiso Gxwala's fresh-faced debut), and the two strike up an instant rapport. But when Sipho is found holding a bloodied hatchet alongside a dead baby, he is arrested, and Shaun feels compelled to help him.
The audience soon discovers that Sipho believes that he has killed not an innocent child, but an evil spirit - a tikoloshe. What follows is an intriguing exploration into a multi-cultural society in the form of a gripping, well-measured courtroom drama.
The principal cast, including Nandi Nyembe, Ian Roberts, Graham Hopkins, the ever-dependable Vusi Kunene, and veteran Ken Gampu are all superb - proving admirably that local actors can both actually act and comfortably carry a film. Academy-Award nominee, Sir Nigel Hawthorne ("The Madness Of King George"), adds his name and his thespian weight to the film in a cameo role as the trial's judge.
Even though "A Reasonable Man" may rest on Hood's character's shoulders, the story tenderly chronicles Sipho's journey, too. In the end, both pivotal characters have endured hardships and have reached their own epiphanies.
"A Reasonable Man" is a testament to sound, moving filmmaking that tells both a gentle and a violent tale, dealing competently with ambitious themes like difference, ignorance, guilt, fear and harmony.
This reviewer urges all South Africans to see it.
