At DIFF :: Searching for Sugar Man

Searching for Sugar Man | Malik Bendjellou | Sweden, United Kingdom | 2012 | 85min

Many attempts have been made to dramatise the incredible shift in global consciousness that came about when the Internet started performing its magic in the mid-90s; when we discovered ourselves across time and space and realised that we were seeing ourselves in each other’s songs; when fiction was replaced by facts that were better than fiction. Few of these attempts can match the true story of an artifact that lost contact with its mothership and was orphaned on a distant planet where it stirred and amused the locals and provoked fantasies about its unknown origin until a technology was devised that would open a line of contact with its creator and reconcile imagination with reality.

Distilled as such, Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man (2012) is a documentary about our addiction to stories and the deep satisfaction that narrative patterns and peculiarities provide. The music of Rodriguez forms the tingling spine of the film but its overarching genius lies in the fact that Sixto Rodriguez is the “MacGuffin” of his own tale and has little to add when the yarn finally catches up with him. Rodriguez occupies the eye of a storm of intrigue, commentary and enquiry and then lopes through the Detroit snow with his mystery as intact as the crystal-ball apparition on the cover of Cold Fact.

Searching for Sugar Man is a beautifully crafted and emotionally evocative addition to Rodriguez lore and one that, given its success at Sundance 2012, seems set to finally and deservedly embed Cold Fact and Coming from Reality (released on CD in the US for the first time in 2008 and 2009) in the consciousness of his homeland. In addition to introducing the songwriter’s three daughters, the film features Detroit and London collaborators as well as Cape Town’s Stephen Segerman, Mabu Vinyl purveyor of sonic delights and a key cog in the strange mechanism that brought Rodriguez back from the dead and onto a stage in Belleville in 1998.

At Encounters :: Under African Skies

Under African Skies | Joe Berlinger | USA | 2011 | 102min

Eminently likeable interviewees including Oprah Winfrey, Harry Belafonte, Quincy Jones, Whoopi Goldberg and David Byrne extol the virtues of Paul Simon’s landmark 1986 worldbeat classic Graceland while the diminutive songwriter assembles his even more endearing South African collaborators Ray Phiri, Bakithi Kumalo, Isaac Mtshali, Joseph Shabalala and Barney Rachabane (among others) for a 25th anniversary gig in Joburg that, apart from the 702 shout-out in the trailer above, happened seemingly as stealthily as Simon’s visit back in the 80s. At the heart of the film lies a congenial debate between Simon and former Artists Against Apartheid activist turned TV personality Dali Tambo concerning the sanctity of cultural sanctions in which Simon gibes the sanctimony of the ANC concerning politics and the arts by saying “you’re going fuck the artists like all kinds of governments.” Tambo, sporting Daliesque whiskers, holds the party line but instigates a conciliatory hug.

At Encounters :: The African Cypher

The African Cypher | Brian Little | South Africa | 2012 | 89min

“W-O-W!” It’s a line from the film and a fair description of what Brian Little has achieved with his sophomore feature-length documentary, The African Cypher. Like its predecessor Fokofpolisiekar: Forgive Them for They Know Not What They Do (2009), the film glazes its subject in hyper-realism and sees Fly on the Wall mapping out territory at the intersection of reality TV and creative documentary. The film is essentially a mix-tape of dynamic dance sequences filmed on location and bathed in epic audio that culminates in a televisual dance-off at the Red Bull Beat Battle. The narrative is driven by less remarkable interviews touching on identity/redemption/salvation through dance but pulls off a turn-around crescendo with a sublime scene that taps into the universal truth of friendship and loyalty. While the word “cypher” in the film’s title refers to a circle of dancers, it also speaks of our voyeuristic compulsion to posit meaning. Although the ethnographic dimension of The African Cypher expresses itself most openly through the director’s voice-overs, the film operates in documentary territory that is unashamedly less interested in observation than cultivated subjectivity.

At Encounters :: A Common Purpose

A Common Purpose | Mitzi Goldman | Australia | 2011 | 75min
 

 Andrea Durbach & Justice Bekebeke

It’s 1985 in a Northern Cape Town town made socio-political pressure-cooker. An “illegal” gathering meets bullish, trigger-happy police and mob violence sees 25 people collectively charged with the murder of a policeman. A Common Purpose is both a reunion narrative documenting lawyer Andrea Durbach’s return to South Africa (having emigrated to Australia) to visit former death row clients-cum-friends as well as a legal drama that exposes the Kafkaesque legislation of the times. The film follows the development of the case and, while pointing to the State’s myopic desire to quash dissent, acknowledges but steers clear of the ethical conundrum of mob or retributional violence. It also features an interview with journalist John Carlin, whose book about the 1995 Rugby World Cup sets the cynicism of “Upington 25” defendant turned Independent Electoral Commission officer, Justice Bekebeke, in contrast with Madiba’s crafty plans for national catharsis. Carlin’s Playing the Enemy (2008) was adapted for the screen in the form of Clint Eastwood’s Invictus (2009).

At Encounters :: Jumu’a | Port Nolloth

Jumu’a: The Gathering | Dylan Valley | South Africa | 2012 | 48min

Just when you thought you knew everything about Cape Town, along comes Dylan Valley with a story about a mosque established by a Scottish Shaykh and a community of Muslim hipsters who are into riding waves and drinking artesanal coffee. Jumu’a: The Gathering is not only a window into Muizenberg’s Murabitun community, touching on the characteristics that set it apart from how Islam is more broadly practiced in Cape Town, but also a meditation of the socially cohesive nature of faith communities and the importance of the support mechanisms they provide. What emerges is a picture of an inclusive Islamic movement with spiritual values and practices that are as ancient and universal as they are contemporary and idiosyncratic.

Port Nolloth: Between a Rock and a Hard Place | Felix Seuffert | South Africa | 2012 | 32min

It’s no surprise that the Port Nolloth would appeal to a filmmaker with the eye of a photographer. Hemmed between fierce Atlantic and arid hinterland while negotiating dense fog and endless open skies, the Northern Cape frontier town makes for a beguiling canvas. Yet Port Nolloth: Between a Rock and a Hard Place delivers more than just eye candy. And while the film’s three character sketches document the town’s peculiar infatuation with diamonds, a feeling of liminality pervades, speaking to themes like masculinity, wealth, status and our relationship to higher powers like corporations, God and fate.

At Encounters :: On the Edge | Between Heaven & Hell

On the Edge | Isy India Geronimo | South Africa | 2012 | 44min

An indictment of the way homeless people are treated by South African police, On the Edge confronts audiences with the unsettling reality of life of the streets of inner city Johannesburg. The film also underlines the vulnerability of disenfranchised foreigners to human-rights abuses and even sees filmmaker Isy India Geronimo, an American lawyer chosen for a clerkship at the South African Constitutional Court in 2011, being incarcerated on an immigration offence as retribution for bringing the police to task. Geronimo's personal narrative frames the film but her Constitutional Court experience and legal knowledge as well as her own experience of being an "outsider" in South Africa sadly remain on the margins. And while the film gives a voice to victims and advocates the support provided by NGOs and churches, the behaviour of the SAPS is passed off as the institutionalised legacy of the SAP.

Between Heaven & Hell | Clifford Bestall | South Africa | 2012 | 48min

In 1989, songwriter Johannes Kerkorrel implored listeners to give their hearts and uncertain futures to Hillbrow. If Between Heaven & Hell is anything to go by, these are the commodities that the notorious inner-city Johannesburg neighborhood is still trading on. Commissioned by Al Jazeera Witness, filmmaker Clifford Bestall's story is pivoted on a boxing gym, a former champ turned trainer living its basement, two women boxers under his wing and a night-club owner cast as fight promoter. And then there's Bernice, an elderly Jewish lady as tangentially connected to the narrative as she is to the people in her neighborhood. As the title suggests, Hillbrow emerges as a place of exile where survivors strive for the dangling carrot of deliverance.