I saw this film as part of the Ghent filmfestival 2011. The announcement promised hypocrisy around homosexuality within South Africa as the central theme. Daring topic but it completely failed to deliver because of distracting faults in story line and pacing. Worst of all was that our logic was stretched far beyond its natural limits in understanding how events and actions developed into new events. Otherwise it could have attracted other viewers than those already aware of this hypocrisy.
The story follows the uncle character most of the time. Bed time talks with his wife are about cleaning the swimming pool, their daughter asking for money, and other domestic matters, ending with both trying to go asleep on their own bed halves. In full contrast with his life as an average family man, we see him visiting a house where he meets other regulars to have sex with each other. When one of them brings along a young black friend, he is shown the door and told to never come back, as per house rules "no faggots, no blacks". After that incident these middle aged men have an orgy together, a not too attractive sight but necessary to demonstrate dormant gay feelings in the main character, and others with him.
The first contact between the two main characters (uncle and nephew) seemed to go very well when they meet on a wedding reception. The uncle is stricken by the look of the nephew. Due to the considerable distance between the cities they live in, the uncle needs a courageous step to renew their contact. He invents a business trip and arrives in the neighborhood, but still has no valid excuse to get nearer. Fruitlessly, he visits relatives of the nephew, observes him on the university campus, watches him on the beach with his daughter, visits some bars in the city, and so on. Each of these scenes, but especially the last one, drags on way too long without heading in any direction.
A second problem is that I found many logic faults in the story. An indirect result of falsely reporting his car stolen (why?), is that uncle and nephew finally meet. Their conversation seems not to run very smoothly, however. The dialog falters very often, seemingly no stepping stone for meeting again. Nevertheless, they continue talking in the uncle's hotel room (why?). When the uncle finally makes his move, things go very wrong. No fatal injuries on the outside, but internal scars will take time to heal, let alone what the outcry will be when the rest of their family learns about it.
Though what happened in the hotel room can be expected to have severe impact on family relationships, we see no reference to it in any later scene. At least the daughter should know, given her close relation with the nephew. But she only comes home to ask forgiveness (probably about the stolen car, which was not really stolen, as far as I understood). And with this closing scene still on our minds, we were sent home without a clue how everything ties together, nor how it makes logical sense.
All in all, the 99 minutes of this film are not used very well. Illogical sequences of events and several unexplained open ends could have been given more attention in the same time frame. For example, the uncle buys an IPod (with o) for this nephew, after hearing that he was in need of an IPad (with a). We see him carrying the IPod along all the time, but never gets the chance to hand it over and have his mistake exposed. A second example lies in the wrongly ended hotel room scene. I was expecting dire consequences for family relationships, but it mysteriously disappears. All that is left as an exercise to the viewer. Meanwhile too much time is wasted in prolonged bar, café and beach scenes, without contributing anything much to the story.
There is technically nothing wrong with this film as far as casting and acting by main characters is concerned. But irrelevant scenes drag on, while conversely others are too sketchy to let us connect the dots. Further, regarding the promised central "gay traits in each man" theme, stating that double standards exist in South Africa, can be considered daring for the average Afrikaander, but it is in fact nothing new in any part of the world. Those needing to be educated on this, will be resented by the idea alone, and won't even consider watching any part this film. A missed chance, as it might have worked as an eye opener when packaged in a better plot. This is a loss for director as well as actors, since all ingredients were there, just waiting to be picked up.
The story follows the uncle character most of the time. Bed time talks with his wife are about cleaning the swimming pool, their daughter asking for money, and other domestic matters, ending with both trying to go asleep on their own bed halves. In full contrast with his life as an average family man, we see him visiting a house where he meets other regulars to have sex with each other. When one of them brings along a young black friend, he is shown the door and told to never come back, as per house rules "no faggots, no blacks". After that incident these middle aged men have an orgy together, a not too attractive sight but necessary to demonstrate dormant gay feelings in the main character, and others with him.
The first contact between the two main characters (uncle and nephew) seemed to go very well when they meet on a wedding reception. The uncle is stricken by the look of the nephew. Due to the considerable distance between the cities they live in, the uncle needs a courageous step to renew their contact. He invents a business trip and arrives in the neighborhood, but still has no valid excuse to get nearer. Fruitlessly, he visits relatives of the nephew, observes him on the university campus, watches him on the beach with his daughter, visits some bars in the city, and so on. Each of these scenes, but especially the last one, drags on way too long without heading in any direction.
A second problem is that I found many logic faults in the story. An indirect result of falsely reporting his car stolen (why?), is that uncle and nephew finally meet. Their conversation seems not to run very smoothly, however. The dialog falters very often, seemingly no stepping stone for meeting again. Nevertheless, they continue talking in the uncle's hotel room (why?). When the uncle finally makes his move, things go very wrong. No fatal injuries on the outside, but internal scars will take time to heal, let alone what the outcry will be when the rest of their family learns about it.
Though what happened in the hotel room can be expected to have severe impact on family relationships, we see no reference to it in any later scene. At least the daughter should know, given her close relation with the nephew. But she only comes home to ask forgiveness (probably about the stolen car, which was not really stolen, as far as I understood). And with this closing scene still on our minds, we were sent home without a clue how everything ties together, nor how it makes logical sense.
All in all, the 99 minutes of this film are not used very well. Illogical sequences of events and several unexplained open ends could have been given more attention in the same time frame. For example, the uncle buys an IPod (with o) for this nephew, after hearing that he was in need of an IPad (with a). We see him carrying the IPod along all the time, but never gets the chance to hand it over and have his mistake exposed. A second example lies in the wrongly ended hotel room scene. I was expecting dire consequences for family relationships, but it mysteriously disappears. All that is left as an exercise to the viewer. Meanwhile too much time is wasted in prolonged bar, café and beach scenes, without contributing anything much to the story.
There is technically nothing wrong with this film as far as casting and acting by main characters is concerned. But irrelevant scenes drag on, while conversely others are too sketchy to let us connect the dots. Further, regarding the promised central "gay traits in each man" theme, stating that double standards exist in South Africa, can be considered daring for the average Afrikaander, but it is in fact nothing new in any part of the world. Those needing to be educated on this, will be resented by the idea alone, and won't even consider watching any part this film. A missed chance, as it might have worked as an eye opener when packaged in a better plot. This is a loss for director as well as actors, since all ingredients were there, just waiting to be picked up.