LADUMA - the film by tamar naicker
LADUMA is a story of fragmentation. In persons, psychological fragmentation is the result of early childhood pains and emotional trauma. Fragmentation in the psyche of a nation is no different. Fragmentation shatters a person’s memories, chronology and autonomy into hundreds of pieces. To compensate for this ruptured self, a false psychological skin is acquired, a kind of live mummification. While these bandages house the splinters, the wounds are unhealed and continue to burn. The film LADUMA wants to strip away the now suffocating layers of visual media.
LADUMA is a South African story. A South African story normally dwells on a white man, a black man and a brown man; and their relationship with the past. LADUMA deals with this yes, however it does so on a radically subjective level which exposes the many timelines intersecting in this country. The post-apartheid romance titillating foreign audience is one layer peeled off. The romantic reminiscent idealism of the African Writing canon is another. Real-life reportage, Artist tic questioning, a move to the pure aesthetics of tik, parodies starred in advertisements, global south Africa, local, foreign; all of these are disposed of. The question left hanging is where will this process stop, and whether there is indeed anything inside this skin at all?
So the film wants to expose and dissolve various visual reflections of this country. There will be absolutely no trace of spoof, as the transitions between forms will be subtle and leave the viewer wondering whether it is they who have imagined the switch. This is the basic intent. All the while this will be an emotionally potent film which burns down forms until there is none left, breaking castles built on sand and providing space for the new-wave of South African film-makers to build upon.
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