Reviews
- the sedateness of durban verses the magic of improvisation
- WELCOME NELSON REVIEW
- DRUMSOUND WILLOWVALE HOTEL
- Avatar
- SMS Sugar Man
- the bow project
- Music Today fund raising concert
- Watchmen
- Wasted
- Bicky, Pristina, Babylonia
- Burn after reading
- POP - Splat
- Lesbian scene in SMS Sugar Man
- The Wallets
- Isiqalo: Dr. Zakes album
- 12shooters
- A Dream of Life
- Jesus and the giant
- The Kiss that Kisses the Kiss
- The Dark Knight...
- Velvet
- Derek
- He WAS out of control
- I'm not there
- SMS Sugar Man 2 (an analysis)
- the diabolical bulk
- The Walker
- Horton Who's a What?
- La Vie en Rose
- No Country For Old Men
- into the wild
- Across the Universe
- The Devil's Labyrinth
- Hannibal Rising
- 300
13
Dec
| SMS Sugar Man |
| Reviews - Film - Music - Book |
| Sunday, 13 December 2009 00:00 |
 SMS Sugar Man had its world premiere in March 2008 in London at the FILMOBILE Festival of films and art made with cellular phones. It is about to have its South African premier at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival in July.I cannot remember when last I watched a film with my eyes SO WIDE OPEN. I looked in the mirror afterwards and my eyes were bloodshot: I had hardly blinked. Philosophically, this film has eclipsed the existentialist novelist Kafka, when, lost in the labyrinth, he searched for meaning through the morass of bureaucracy getting nowhere. Here Kaganof (author, director, painter, poet,) searches for meaning by plumbing the depths of the male psyche, and gets everywhere. Modern Jungian analysts would have a field day in recognising the various aspects of the psyche: the multiple levels of the animus and anima, revealed with such dramatic comprehension. Put bluntly, SMS Sugar Man is a cinematic masterpiece of its time, its place: which happens to be Johannesburg, South Africa. A man, tackling his similitude and going through the process of dissolution, requires great strength of character......for nothing can be predicted in this life-and-death struggle for authenticity.....if ever he comes out of it alive, that is... However we must realise that in the real world, this is more likely the journey of the artist. And this is why the film triumphs so brilliantly - it is not just about the artist: it is about Every Man. The intimacy of the process is perfectly captured by the three lead female characters - Selene: Deja Bernhardt, Grace: Leigh Graves, and Anna: Samantha Rocca - who, each in their own way, reflect the vulnerability that Sugar Man (Aryan Kaganof) eschews....giving performances that are beautiful, exhilarating, captivating - and their encounters with the Wallets: the men who pay for their favours. Kaganofs screen presence is haunting, haunted, impressive, becoming the archetypal foil in whom the battle-lines for identity are drawn. And thus it is that this eschewing relentlessly unravels him. The apprehension invoked through the very personal nature of their work (hookers - the unabashed nakedness, the emotional openness: Selenes arched back with Wallet no. 2, a mesmerising John Matshikiza) requires that the players develop a level of honesty that steps outside the realm of ordinary relationships....making them intrinsically vulnerable to one another. Sugarman egotistically suggests that his sugars think of him as they are about to embark on their solicitous appointments, where in fact they are perfectly in control....they know their territory...a territory he could never enter, never understand....while he insists on trying to keep a safe distance....which eventually obsesses him. As such, Kaganof - as author - exhibits a profound understanding of a womans intrinsic power, surpassing all the diatribe about sexism; feminism.       The dialogue is sparse, poetic, cyclic, with not a wasted word, echoing the synergy yet clarity of sound (voice) and image. Director of photography, Eran Tahor has done a masterful job of interpreting Kagaonofs vision and concept with its Dick Tracey silhouettes where the use of cell phones intrusively and expressively perfectly captures and enhances both the genre and the technology...the films within the film; the characters within the character. And while the use of cellphones could quite easily have become the focal reason de etre as it were, they are never allowed to be. Kaganofs direction of the actors and actresses is insightful....particularly in the close-ups, the repetitive and insistent depth of intimacy: Who is the father....?......Who is the father.....? where the inflection of the voice becomes as vital as the blue-eyed equivalent of Graces feigned innocence...luring, alluring, provocative.... And of course Sugar Man has to surrender, even if that surrender is forced upon him....which it both is and isn't. The other wallets need to be mentioned for their sensitive portrayals: Jerry Mofokeng with Norman Moake - his son, Ryan Fortune, Luthuli Dlamini and an unrecognizable Bill Curry. The use of music enhances and interweaves the inventiveness of the narrative, never allowing the viewer to be lulled into a false sense of security.... Cinematically there are many highlights, but Deja Bernhardt takes this film to extraordinary heights when she calls Atilla (Atilla Barna) to arrange a meeting: "Atilla.....its Selene........I need your help..............".. The voice, that voice, that face, shall surely launch a thousand ships!  ...there is still much to be said about this film... the goddess... the femme fatal... the sexual politics.... ale female relationships... this film is a seminal work of art - the 'andalusian dog' of the modern cinema - a truly remarkable achievement.... .... and of course there is the more banal aspect of relating it to the average South African mind-sex-set... where no doubt it is an absolute mine field of controversy........ of course it is challenging, provocative.... but it is vital to bear in mind that Kaganof needs nudity as much as a surgeon needs a scalpel: it is his instrument of revelation, of incising his investigation. The Dick Tracey silhoutte becomes the silhouette of the agent provocateur who is Kaganof and Sugar Man in fusion.
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