kagablog

aryan kaganof in sms sugar man

THE SOLIPSIST CREATES WORLD FIRST ON A CELL PHONE

Solipsism (SOL-uhp-siz-uhm, SOH-luhp-siz-uhm) - The belief that all reality is just one’s own imagining of reality, and that one’s self is the only thing that exists.

Aryan Kaganof is possibly South Africa’s most prolific filmmaker (over 15 films and 30 videos); certainly our most avant-garde cineaste. Biographer Immanuel Stammelman in “The Solipsist – problems of meaning in the films and videos of Aryan Kaganof” says, “Kaganof does not seem to believe that films should be about something; he reproduces his central themes compulsively regardless of the ostensible subject. He seems to film for the glancer; even the earnest viewer who begins at the first frame has the constant impression of having started watching somewhere in the middle.”

In 1996 Kaganof made the ‘rave’ movie Wasted! (Naar De Klote) which was a hit in the Netherlands. For the film he pioneered the process of shooting a feature on digital video and blowing it up to 35mm. True to his visionary modus operandi Kaganof has recently completed another cinema world first. His film SMS Sugar man which wrapped in late December was shot entirely on Sony Ericsson W900i cell phones.

The film stars newcomers Deja Bernhardt and Leigh Graves as two hookers and Kaganof himself as the titular Sugar man, a pimp who grapples with his conscience while driving three of his ladies around one Christmas Eve.
The film took three months from concept to wrap and the entire shoot lasted a mere twelve days. At the time of going to press Kaganof was under severe pressure preparing a promo for the film for Rotterdam, his response to my e-mailed questions was typically witty and acute, “I deeply appreciate the opportunity to answer all those questions but right now I don’t even have the time to read them…my only statement about SMS Sugar Man is ‘I FILM WHAT I LIKE`”

The film which was largely improvised around a collection of Kaganof’s short stories – “Sugar Man and Other Bitter Stories”- which he calls a ‘novel in ruins’ had an extremely low-budget. They had a treatment, then workshopped with the actresses and developed character arcs before concentrating on plot and structure.

For post, the memory disk files were downloaded onto a laptop and then converted into a usable format for their edit on a G5 Quad Mac using Final Cut Pro. As for the look of the film, those who have seen rushes tell me they’re impressed and that it doesn’t look as pixilated as they imagined. Kaganof says, “It’s only a problem if you want the image to look like conventional 35mm, the point is that the image in this film will look like itself. In other words - a new direction, a new possibility for cinema. Perhaps only a tangent perhaps not, but we’re following it anyway.”

But Kaganof is not just a filmmaker; his creative gamut includes books of poetry, novels, collections of short stories, art exhibitions, live performances with his band Freedom Fighter, short documentaries and features. In a review of Kaganof’s anthology ‘Jou Ma Se Poems’ maverick filmmaker Anton Krueger remarks, “Kaganof is the foremost counter-culture revolutionary in South Africa. Often his virulently oppositional stance reminds us that that we have a culture at all. He’s ruthlessly extreme in his views; there is no middle ground for him, and it seems that people’s reactions to him and his work is similar: either people are mesmerised by his fiery enthusiasm and inspired by his prodigious energy, or they find him perverse and obnoxious. But love him or hate him, he’s impossible to ignore.”

By making SMS Sugar Man, Kaganof is once again tackling ‘film culture’ head-on and with the current boom in local content is determined to rumple more than a few cinema seats. In an interview in the Mail & Guardian last year to coincide with Film Resource Unit’s Awakening Film Festival he remarked, “The problem is “the lack of distribution of non-Hollywood propaganda movies in this country”, which, to a degree, the Awakening Film Festival is redressing. But “first we have to bomb the malls — they’re flattening our culture — and then we can talk about a solution to this problem,” says Kaganof. Perhaps the solution is in the palm of one’s hand or at least in the hand of this uncompromising cinematic solipsist.

Andrew Worsdale
(this article originally appeared in The Callsheet)