kagablog

HARDCORE CONFRONTATION WITH THE ENEMY INSIDE THE SOUTH AFRICAN

Right at the end of CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST (Nice To Meet You, Please Don’t Rape Me!) is a scene wherein the three main actors dance naked in a ruined building in Johannesburg while chained to each other. “It is the only scene that gave us any problems”, according to director Ian Kerkhof who is South African by birth.

“As a precautionary measure we had chosen election day as the day to shoot this scene. We suspected that the police would be too busy to pay us any attention. But someone had seen us at work and phoned in to complain. South Africans are extremely prudish. The result was four police vans, and twelve agents who jumped out at us wielding machine guns. We could only continue with the scene once the actors had covered their genitals. In the final shots they’re actually wearing jeans although you don’t see this in the frame.”

Perverted

CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST exposes the perverted-to-the-marrow South African society in a compelling way. South Africans have been raped by apartheid for so long that double speak has become their mentality. “As I have tried to show in the film, South Africans are conditioned to wearing masks. It would be good if they could express their hate to each other. Only then can a healing process begin. The time has come to lance the boil and expell all the pus from within.”

Metaphor

The rape theme doesn’t only play a figurative role. Fiction and reality are weaved seamlessly into each other. Ian chose the metaphor after he read about the Yeoville rapist whose crimes had upset the apparent racial harmony in this trendy neighbourhood of Johannesburg. Research uncovered the possibility that the man had been paid by the government and that high ranking army officials had given the order to systematically rape women who were political activists. “Every 83 seconds in South Africa a woman is sexually abused. The discussion between the three rapists and the government official who suggests that the figures should be stepped up in 1995 to one every minute isn’t merely a joke” according to Ian Kerkhof. “I interviewed many women rape survivors with the intention of placing their experiences in between my images. That did not happen eventually because the television version was only allowed to be 67 minutes long. In the cinema version, which is 82 minutes long, these interview fragments are used. What comes across primarily in these interviews is that both black and white women live their whole lives in constant fear. There is unprecedented hatred of women in South Africa”.
CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST deals out punishing blows, is (certainly in its use of language) extremely gross and throws a bucket load of questions at its audience. “This is deliberate, because only in this way is the audience compelled to make moral decisions for themselves. I refuse to dish out easy moral resolutions.”

For the actors the filming was an exceptional experience. “They found it refreshing to work with someone who at least tried to tell the truth. The rule of the game there is not to say what you think. Everyone is constantly busy with self-censorship and that won’t change so quickly, because it has been branded in for centuries.”

Ian Kerkhof, whose first feature film KYODAI MAKES THE BIG TIME won two Golden Calves, spent seven weeks in his country of birth. “Although the idea was born in Holland, I wrote the script in South Africa with Peter J. Morris. Casting went well until the actors read the script. The Afrikaans actor resigned immediately. He wasn’t prepared to take part because he had recently had a child. The problem with South Africans is that they are hot-heads, who aren’t prepared to discuss things they don’t like but simply resort to blows or bullets. In this instance he was worried that they would shoot him and not me, the actor and not the writer. The black actor after reading the script told me that he had to go to Germany! On Friday I had one actor and we were supposed to start rehearsals on the Monday! It was pure luck that I found Eric Miyeni. He is a well-known South African actor and has his own culture programme on television. Gustav Grass hails from avant-garde theatre. They turned out to be much better choices than the people I had originally cast.”

The film won’t be broadcast in South Africa. The nude scenes and the swearing won’t get by the censors. And that is a pity. If only for its stylistic qualities the film should definitely be seen there. It is in fact an extremely musical film, wherein the poetic quality of the images (often in the role of fourth person) are strongly supported by the rhythm of the words.

HANS PIET
HAAGSCHE COURANT 1/6/94