kagablog

gustav geldenhuys, matthew oats and eric miyeni in nice to meet you, please don’t rape me! (south africa, 1994)
(photo derek bernstein)

A young South African film maker returns to his fatherland for the VPRO in order to make a film during the elections. Wat can be expected of him other than that he casts his vote? He will visit his family, test the opinions of old friends, visit an election meeting and film the queues in front of voting stations. Something of the sort.

One measly row of waiting voters, two posters with De Klerk and Mandela (over which somebody urinates): that is about all in CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST (nice to meet you, please don’t rape me!) by Ian Kerkhof that directly refers to the day of the historic elections. Kerkhof filmed in Yeoville, the suburb of Johannesburg in which he was born. Even filmed at his old school. But not to surprise the editorial board of the VPRO with a pleasant report.

Producer Bram van Splunteren had to submit the film to a careful scrutiny to see whether Kerkhof’s tough dialogues were permissable for broadcast. Amongst others he stumbled on a monologue with an anti-semitic tone but decided to broadcast the film uncensored because the texts were acceptable within the context of the feature film that Kerkhof had chosen to make about his country of birth.

Kerkhof does not take part in the folk lore of rapportage about South Africa, that is one of the few things that makes CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST clear. Kerkhof’s film will make many eyebrows wrinkle. Those who are familiar with Kerkhof’s work will know his dark fascination for sex, violence and death. He uses rape as a metaphor for what has happened to the South African people during the period of apartheid. Three actors, two white and one black, play an “unholy trinity”, a terrifying trio who collectively represent the Yeoville rapist, but then not as realistic characters, rather as demonic archetypes.

Yeoville used to be considered a neighbourhood where the integration of black and white was successful. Until white women were raped by a black man. An innocent suspect, son of a prominent ANC member, is currently filing libel suits against newspapers who were greedy for a racist rape coup. “Finally here was proof that all black men want to rape white women” analyses Kerkhof. The suspect’s innocence was proved but the damage had been done. The trust and calm was gone from the neighbourhood.

“South Africa is racist and anti-semitic, only the liberals have an attitude of ‘not us!’” The South African variation of political correctness, positive intervention, which forbids negative images of people is according to Kerkhof “the new Stalinism”. “Everbody thinks that that now there is democracy in South Africa everything is ok. But a cross on a ballot paper doesn’t change anything.”

Experts that Kerkhof spoke to when researching the film maintained that the extreme levels of violence in the country were considered normal by many people, as was sexual violence. Every 83 seconds a woman is raped in South Africa. The predictions for the future are that that number would rise. “Meetings, ordinary day to day contacts are always coloured by the threat of violence. An ordinary exchange of ideas is almost impossible. All men are incredibly busy being men. Misogyny is a way of life, and that mentality isn’t changing. That goes for white racism and black anti-semitism too. I don’t believe that everybody is suddenly going to change. South Africans are in a psychotic crisis. South Africa has the best torturers and rapist in the world.”

In CONFESSIONS OF A YEOVILLE RAPIST Kerkhof turns the black and white stereotypes around, for example by getting the black actor to say “I’m Barend Strijdom” - the white murderer of 19 black people who received amnesty as a “political prisoner”. An actor with a mask of Verwoerd - architect of apartheid - rapes a showroom dummy. The three naked, chained actors sing “Everybody must get raped!”. A litany of names and events out of South African history are poured forth in the stream of hate filled agressive dialogues. Kerkhof, who claims to have looked at his fatherland with “a vagina’s eye view”, didn’t bother to vote.

HUIB STAM
VOLKSKRANT 1/6/94