Moffie Directed by Oliver Hermanus

Moffie

Directed by Oliver Hermanus

Starrings: Kai Luke Brummer, Ryan de Villiers, Matthew Vey, Stefan Vermaak, Hilton Pelser, Wynand Ferreira, Hendrik Nieuwoudt, Shaun Chad Smit, Rikus Terblanche, Matt Ashwell, Ludwig Baxter, Philippa Berrington-Blew, Mitchell Christy, Jan Combrink, Remano De Beer

Country: South Africa, UK

Year 2019

Author of review: Roberto Matteucci

Click Here for Italian Version

"Welcome to the funfair".

In the eighties, South Africa entered in deep social, political and economic crisis. With the independence of many African states, South Africa was isolated. The only allies on its borders remained Zimbabwe and Namibia, the latter controlled directly by South Africa.

Meanwhile, in the north of Namibia, a civil conflict broke out in Angola between the communist government and the UNITA movement. Angola became the scenario of an indirect clash of other nations. Russia and Cuba took sided with Angola. Cuba sent troops. UNITA had the support of the United States and South Africa. South Africa also sent army.

With the South African defeat in the battle of Cuito Cuanavale the war ended. The agreement provided for the withdrawal of both Cubans and South Africans.

The debacle meant the legalization of the liberation groups, the release from prison of Mandela: it was the end of apartheid. (1)

The hostility in Angola is the background of the film Moffie by director Oliver Hermanus, screened at the 76th Venice Film Festival.

The author has a conformist thesis. There were whites treated worse than black people: homosexuals. Oliver Hermanus considers the black discrimination similar to homosexuals prejudice.

In 2015 Oliver Hermanus presented in Venice, the The Endless River. A brutal story set in a small town in South Africa where nature prevails. South Africa's physical beauty is compared to violence in all the country. Another allegory about the South Africa: wonders and wickedness have lived together for years. Moffie's argument is the same, obviously described differently.

It is 1981. Nicholas, seventeen years old, is conscripted to fight in Angola. The boy, along with many energetic young people, leaves for the border. Before being catapulted into the conflict they must stop in a training camp.

Moffie is a contemptuous, vulgar, term for South African gays. The director tells:

"At the center of this film there is a word - moffie. Any gay man living in south africa knows this word and has a relationship with it. It's a weapon that has been used against us for so long. I felt a strong pull to exploring my own history with this word which ended up being a scene in the film and i think it was the want to de-nuclearise, reform this word that was at the heart of my decision to make this film." (2)

For the author, Moffie is a film about one word. A word to be freed, to be cleaned, and subsequently assigned a historical and social concept. Reconverting a word is like reconverting a nation. South African society is masculine, more extreme in an exclusively male context like the army. The director reveals these two themes: 

"The film's primary focus is masculinity. It explores the way that white south african men have been made for over a century. How the apartheid system, the army and the conservative nature of this country fed young boys an ideology of superiority and hate. Being a 'moffie' in this context meant being a crime, being a problem, a mistake. " (2)

In this tough society, Nicholas has to conceal his weaknesses and his sin. A juvenile crime causes a sense of guilt towards the family. It was a teenage event, shown in a disturbing flashback. Nicholas must appear strong, dissimulate to be proud of the recruitment, he has to pretend to be at ease when his father gave him a gift: a porn magazine. In training, he must be wary. It is not easy. There are too many young, forceful, handsome boys. Loneliness and war trigger desire. Alone, tired, cold, far from home, they find themselves in a trench, they look each other in the eyes, they caress each other.

The intolerance is total. A fellow soldier discovers two recruits in the bathroom while they exchange sexual gestures. They suffer the worst humiliations and are even transferred to the ward 22, the psychiatric department of the military clinic. The condition of gays in the hospital is a secret, the witnesses reply just with muteness. They are silent, there are no words to expose the cruelty suffered. A soldier tries to react, to deny, screaming in despair: "I am not like you", but it is not true.

The enlisted reach the first line by train.

A very evocative scene. The convoy is filmed from above, inside it is packed of males, engaged in hiding their worries. The wagons run through a verdant forest. The train is majestic while rhythmically tossing numerous sexy guys.

The train is not a causal symbol, especially in this sequence, train is full of hormone-rich males:

“The shaking sensation experienced in wagons and railroad trains exerts such a fascinating influence on older children, that all boys, at least at one time in their lives, want to become conductors and drivers. They are wont to ascribe to railroad activities an extraordinary and mysterious interest, and during the age of phantastic activity (shortly before puberty) they utilize these as a nucleus for exquisite sexual symbolisms. The desire to connect railroad travelling with sexuality apparently originates from the pleasurable character of the sensation of motion." (3)

Fast running through the green of South Africa has this function. 

Life in the camp reflects this carnal drive. The director shoots them like statues, like Apollo, like the Riace Warriors. They wear camouflage under the scorching sun. Or in queue, full of virility. Or naked, lustful, diaphanous in the showers. Or in their exciting nudity. The sensuality is deliberately researched, using direct images in training, or during war. Or in the flashback of the hidden past, in the erotic glances in the locker room of a club. His voyeurism was discovered with the consequent shame in front of parents and guests.

Machismo is another topic of the story.

There is the super-exploited character of the bad and mother-fucker sergeant, exaggerated in nullify the personality of the recruits: "Now you are owned by the South African government".

There are manly exercises, muscular attitudes, masculine fights: 

"The fact remains, however, that a number of persons report that they experienced the first signs of excitement in their genitals during fighting or wrestling with playmates, in which situation, besides the general muscular exertion, there is an intensive contact with the opponent's skin which also becomes effective. The desire for muscular contest with a definite person, like the desire for word contest in later years, is a good sign that the object selection has been directed toward this person. In the promotion of sexual excitement through muscular activity we might recognize one of the sources of the sadistic impulse. The infantile connection between fighting and sexual excitement acts in many persons as a determinant for the future preferred course of their sexual impulse." (3)

This is the male chauvinist environment created by Oliver Hermanus.

The direction is formal, follows a logic, a clear and determined assertions. The choices are specific. The atmosphere of the time is spot on. Alternate scenes from focus and non-focus one. A useful technique for internalizing Nicholas.

(1) Mario Zamponi, Breve storia del Sudafrica, Carocci editore, Roma, I edizione, febbraio 2009

(2) https://writingstudio.co.za/writer-director-oliver-hermanus-talks-about-moffie/

(3) Sigmund Freud, Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory, New York, 1910

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