Encountering modernity: twentieth-century South African cinemas and South African national cinema

Critical Arts, July, 2009 by Edwin Hees

Having said that, there is no doubt that this book will rightfully remain an important and influential study for a long time to come. The early chapters provide a thorough and incisive account of filmmaking in this country, from the early years of the twentieth century up until the 1940s. Not only do these chapters assimilate existing scholarship in this particular area, but some of the new insights are extremely constructive. I particularly liked the suggestion about the use of intertitles in De Voortrekkers (1916): 'The intertitles are in fact so critical to the film's meaning that they might be seen as inter-images in the form of text' (p. 30). Given the film's nation-building agenda, this is a particularly trenchant observation. Two additional features of these first chapters worth commenting on are, first, the keen awareness of the representations of women, read very sympathetically here (and elsewhere in the book), in what has tended to be a male-dominated industry. The second feature is the highlighting of Hans Rompel's work and, perhaps even more significantly, its influence well into the 1950s. Thelma Gutsche has received her fair share of (on the whole) adulatory attention, but it took important spadework by Tomaselli and Michael Eckardt (2006) not so much to rehabilitate as to reinstate Rompel into the history of South African 'national' cinema, and Maingard quite appropriately outlines the impact of his extremely narrowly conceived Afrikaner nationalism on the industry.

The middle chapters of the book (4, 5 and 6) are, in my view, truly excellent examples of what writing on South African cinema can be at its best. Not only do they provide wonderfully perceptive and nuanced readings of the six films selected for the theme of these chapters, but they also do full justice to the complexity of the representational issues involved in a situation where liberal, privileged, powerful white filmmakers, in full control of the means of production, are making films--albeit with complete sympathy and empathy--about 'black' experience. A considerable amount has been written on these six films--Jim comes to Joburg (1949), The magic garden (1951), Zonk (1950), Song of Africa (1951), Cry, the beloved country (1951) and Come back, Africa (1959)--but these chapters extend the discussion in fresh and revealing ways; a particularly interesting perspective on these films is the focus on gender issues. There will naturally be points at which one wants to take issue with the arguments--for example, does the ending of Come back, Africa convey quite as strong a sense of 'empowerment' (p. 113) or 'utopia' (p. 119) as suggested here?--but this in no way detracts from the subtlety or perspicacity of the readings.

The concluding chapters return to the task of addressing issues in 'nationhood' more explicitly again, although interestingly the emphasis shifts more towards identity construction than nation building. In my view this is completely appropriate, simply because the concept of 'nation' is such a contested terrain something Maingard herself notes on the very first page of her Introduction. The key films from the mid-1980s to the present (there are even a few sketchy accounts of Afrikaans films) covering the work of the key anti-apartheid filmmakers--for example, Darryll Roodt, Oliver Schmitz, Zola Maseko--as well as sections on short films and documentaries give these chapters a sense of the range of activity in the industry often missing from the earlier chapters. The unusually detailed reading of Zulu love letter (2004) in the last chapter is perhaps of particular interest, not only because it attempts to 'recoup' a particularly controversial film in terms of the 'African aesthetics' (p. 177) it espouses, but also because it brings so explicitly to the surface the book's engagement with gender (especially feminist) issues, which are here related explicitly (via the TRC) to questions of 'the nation' and identity.