top 3 south african movies of 2009
1. My Black Little Heart - Claire Angelique
A film that penetrates icily beyond all the stereotypes and cliches surrounding the much-hyped junkie myth of raising consciousness. Angelique portrays a reality that, far from extending the oft-promised transcendence, rather roots the spectator in the very same mire that Angelique herself, the junkie protagonist-actress-filmmaker-victim-manipulator, cannot rise out of. The film utilizes a visual language that we’ve seen before in the films of Harmony Korine and Larry Clark, but never to such devastating effect. Angelique’s junkie pill is never sugar-coated. The grimly perfect denouement of this barren tale has the moral gravity of a work by Bresson.
2. District 9 - Neill Blomkamp
3. Stayin’ Alive in Joburg - Rob Schroder
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