kagablog

winnie ryall in “nice to meet you, please don’t rape me!”, 1994
(photo derek bernstein)

“Nice to meet you, please don’t rape me!.” This sentence, sung as if an innocuous pop tune, functions as a recurring leit motif in the VPRO’s film CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST.

Three South Africans, a black and two whites, symbolise the “rapist culture” in their country where a woman is raped every 83 seconds. “South African women live in constant fear. It is a real rape culture. Rapists are everywhere. Occassionally it is a stranger, but the chances are greater that it is your father. The country is so stained by apartheid, the entire family structure has disintegrated. This is the lowest common denominator between black and white men: their attitude to women.”, says film maker Ian Kerkhof. The film was shot on location in Yeoville, a trendy integrated neighbourhood of Johannesburg, during the country’s first democratic elections. Kerkhof was born in Johannesburg and spent most of his youth in Durban. He left South Africa because he refused to be conscripted into the apartheid army and came to the Netherlands in 1983. He studied at the Dutch Film and Television Academy.

CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST begins with three stoned men who declaim around a cluster of fire tins. “When I became the plague, I became afraid of it. But there’s no going back now.” Or “our blood feeds the eye of the world”. The film revolves around this kind of primarily symbolic dialogue. “Now there’s hardly any goodwill left. We’ve swallowed all the lies we could stomach”. At the end of many scenes the trio sing the pleasant tune.

A showroom mannequin symbolises the raped woman. “She” sits with one of the three in a terraced cafe, his “office”. “I’m the man you can’t say no to because I choose you. Every bitch must have her day. I follow them to Yeoville and I’m white and polite so no problem.” Another rapist physically rapes the dummy and stabs it with a knife. Later on the symbol is smeared with black boot polish and tied with rope. The black South African paints the mannequin’s toe- nails in the colours of the new South African flag. All their pent-up rage and frustration is taken out on the mannequin.

The Afrikaans rapist sits on a rooftop and watches women with his binoculars. “I like a chick that thinks she’s safe. Burglar guards don’t help, if a man wants to get in he’ll get in.” The three sit around a restaurant table with a politican. They discuss the future. “At the moment a woman is only raped every 83 seconds”, says the politician, “but it’s your task to see that we step up the figures to one a minute by 1995. Rape is South Africa’s only growth industry and the prospects for the future are blooming.”

According to Kerkhof South Africans have been conditioned into wearing masks. “I reflect this in the film in a scene where one of the actors wears a mask of Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, while raping a mannequin which is adorned with a mask of Malan, the first apartheid prime minister. After the elections these masks, in other words stereotypical, pre-conditioned modes of behaviour, will only be replaced by new masks. Now the masks are smiling. Everyone is apparently each other’s friend and is pretending that apartheid is over with. But black and white don’t communicate with each other. The real struggle is only beginning now. It was easy when there was a clear and distinct “enemy”. All South Africans have been brought up in a sick and perverted society, now they will have to recognise the enemy within themselves in order to dispell it.”

The three actors adress each other, themselves and the audience. Fast camera movements and shots that fly by at lightning speed make the film somewhat chaotic at times. You really have to concentrate to follow everything that is happening. Furthermore Kerkhof refers to many historical issues that will not be immediately clear to everyone. You have to have followed developments in South Africa closely in order to completely understand Kerkhof’s cry of despair.

ANNEMIEKE KORTLANG
TROUW 1/6/94