The First Grader

This is an important film, one of many incredible stories that have emerged from a continent with many dark secrets. Colonialism divided Africa as each country became a satellite empire and each conquest has left a chequered history with no winners. Kimani Maruge saw it all and had the courage to put his hand up when Kenya gave its people the right to a free education.

The First Grader may sound tame with an innocent movie title, but it’s not for sensitive viewers. We’re exposed to Maruge’s stream of consciousness as a flood of painful memories of being a freedom fighter continue to haunt him. Many are unaware of the atrocity that gripped the nation and will be shocked to see these disturbing flashbacks contrasting the man’s fight for education with the struggle for freedom.

Oliver Litondo plays Maruge and delivers a subtle, stoic and spirited performance as the title character. While he’s had a few small parts, Litondo embodies Kimani’s determination going to great lengths to add to the authenticity of the role, even wearing shoes too small for his feet (Maruge’s toes were cut off). He’s supported by Naomie Harris as Jane Obichu, a British actress whose credits include: 28 Days Later…, Miami Vice and Pirates of the Caribbean. She appears to have lost so much weight for the role that she looks like a child and delivers a stalwart performance as the young school teacher. The cast is boosted by accomplished South African character actors Tony Kgoroge and Vusi Kunene, who both add their weight behind the production.

Justin Chadwick, best known for The Other Boleyn Girl, directs this poignant drama with South Africa’s very own Ann Peacockattached as screenwriter. Chadwick balances the experienced cast with an inexperienced real class of extras with a few standout performances, who add to the film’s authenticity and provide a wonderful contrast for Oliver Litondo’s role as a sweet old man dressed in his school uniform. Peacock’s delivers a winning heartfelt script with equal dabs of light and dark to keep the drama taut and flesh out Maruge’s back story only to make his achievement even more remarkable.

The cinematography is effortless, taking Kenya’s natural beauty and keeping the dull central location of the primary school fresh with young faces. The First Grader starts off strong with some parallels to I Am Slave, another powerful drama about the slave trade in Sudan, contrasting the painful past with the hopeful present. Yet, once the characters have been established and the gist of the story has been rooted - The First Grader struggles to maintain its intensity and hits a lull of inevitability as Maruge’sopposition fall away.

The First Grader remains engaging, inspiring and a must-see for its cathartic message of hope, healing and restoration. The solid performances, the deft direction, the heartfelt script and the authenticity of the Kenyan setting overpower its minor flaws and subdued second half, leaving a thought-provoking film that has scooped a heap of film festival audience awards. The sort of film that inspired Sarafina!’s Whoopi Goldberg to say “Run, do not walk, and go see this.”

The bottom line: Powerful

Stephen ‘Spling’ Aspeling
www.spling.co.za
www.spling.mobi

Trust

Every father wants to protect his little girl and Trust offers something of a social commentary on how media has brought with it a wave of new privacy and safety issues. We’re unaware of what kids get up to at the best of times and Trust gives the roving eye a chance to present both sides of the parent-child relationship as 14-year-old Annie becomes the target of a pedophile in her own home.

David Schwimmer, best known as Ross in Friends, has directed several films to date including oddball comedy Run, Fat Boy Runwith Simon Pegg. Trust is a much more daring project, delivering a difficult social message that no one really wants to hear or acknowledge in the hopes of preserving their bubble of peace.Hard Candy treated the same scenario as a thriller with some clever twists in a Red Riding Hood vs. The Wolf style theme, butTrust broadcasts a slice-of-life and all the ugliness that follows such an invasive assault.

The drama stars Clive Owen, Catherine Keener and introduces young Liana Liberato who plays Annie. Owen deals with a sympathetic and obsessive father figure, who takes all the blame – unable to shrug off the guilt and move forward to the point of alienating his daughter. It’s a powerful performance that will resonate will most fathers who remain helpless and pinned by the gravity of these unthinkable acts. He’s supported by Catherine Keener, who plays a secondary lead – concerned, ever supportive and more balanced in absorbing the it-could-never-happen-to-us backfire.

Liana Liberato shares the co-lead with Owen as each of their experiences intertwine in trying to come to terms with what happened in their own way. Liberato is a real find, helped by her anonymity, yet lead by a real sense of presence and emotional vulnerability. The script leaves her in a state of denial and it’s just heartbreaking to see her grapple with the aftershock of innocence lost – making for compelling drama as she bounces between her psychologist, friends and family for understanding.

David Schwimmer has delivered a well-balanced and intelligent independent film. The violence and sexuality is a necessary evil, harsh enough to hit home without taming the ugliness. These moments are fleeting and allow Schwimmer to focus on the collateral damage this incident has on an isolated family with far-reaching consequences. It has the power of a documentary encapsulated in a heartrending drama thriller and should at least be obligatory awareness material in school systems.

Schwimmer could have tightened the screws when it comes toTrust’s thriller label, but they would’ve taken away from the overall integrity and honesty of this reality snapshot. He generates strong performances from his cast and the indie drama feel grounds the film. Including the “innocent” back-and-forth online chat banter as “subtitles” allows him to ease into storytelling as the silent all-seeing narrator showing the audience just how friendly and innocent these introductory conversations can be.

Tough, unflinching and emotional, this gripping film is supported by first-rate performances – making it an eye-opening and important indie social drama. There are one or two discordant moments that create unintentional humour and minor distraction, but these flaws are overcome by noble intentions and emotional intelligence.

The bottom line: Heartbreaking

Stephen ‘Spling’ Aspeling
www.spling.co.za
www.spling.mobi

Derric van Rensburg ‘Spring Fields’

The works of a wide selection of contemporary artists are featured, each presenting a point of view along the infinite continuum of human experience. While the threads of regeneration, beauty, metamorphosis and the cycles of life underlie the whole, there are sinister underpinnings in certain instances.

Hanging next to top botanical artist Vicki Thomas’s Protea are two works by recent Michaelis graduate, David Brits – underneath his flowers lurk another layer of the countries recent history in the shape of a military helicopter and young soldiers. Helen Vaughan’s birds are crows while Gavin Collins’s are pigeons.

Dianne Heesom-Green’s arresting ceramic work called “Metamorphosis I, II and III” is at the centre of the exhibition underwriting the dualities of the exhibition.

Dianne Heesom-Greene ‘Metamorphosis’

Theo Paul Vorster enchants the eye with his original lino cuts, his tactile rendering of different materials such as wood and porcelain is masterful and his homage to Ingrid Jonker is both evocative and moving.

Theo Paul Voster ‘Lino Cut’

Apart from the magnificent floral works of the Keiskamma Art Project the only two paintings of flowers are the work of botanical artists. The extraordinary precision of observation required for botanical painting in order for it to constitute an accurate record of a particular species, holds within itself the faint outline of possible extinction.

While human undertakings are not always compatible with the flourishing of the natural world, the exhibition presents works of art in many different media all of them portraying beauty, metamorphosis, pleasure and the celebration of life in all its diversity.

Spring Awakenings is conceived of as a plea for consciousness. With all profits from sales of the exhibition to benefit the Light From Africa Foundation and its work to support vulnerable children in South Africa, there has never been a better reason to shop! Visit the exhibition at Art in the Forest, Cecilia Forest, Constantia Nek from Monday to Saturday between 10am and 4pm. Whilst there, enjoy a cup of freshly brewed coffee, peruse the functioning ceramic art studio, shop at the boutique upstairs or simply enjoy the breathtaking views of the valley below.

More more info visit www.lightfromafrica.com or join www.facebook.com/lightfromafrica

Avatar

The same thing happened with Garfield and it’s funny how each of these live-action/animated cross-over movies have followed the same formula involving a significant, clumsy yet lovable guardian figure who takes the little critters in as their misadventure lands them in an ever increasing state of mild peril. Garfield, Alvin & The Chipmunks, The Smurfs… all lovable ’80s cartoons – all ravaged in their transition to the big screen by a cookie-cutter that insists on giving them the same sprinkle.

Well, The Smurfs has more characters than Garfield or Alvin & The Chipmunks, but that doesn’t mean anything when a handful of them find themselves trapped in New York City. The film-makers have lifted the themes from several more successful live-action/animation adaptations and given the production a new skin, blue. Remember Back to Gaya, well it’s a carbon copy concept taking a bunch of fantasy beings and introducing them to a fish-out-of-water situation. Look no further than Disney’s Enchanted for some of the main characters.

It’s like director Raja Gosnell has taken all of the live-action/animated cross-overs and blended them to make baby puree for the masses. Gosnell comes off a long line of no-brainer movies including: Scooby-Doo, Beverly Hills Chihuahuaand now The Smurfs. Poor adaptations, lame comedy scripts and an attempt at a heartwarming Disney moment are what characterise his films, yet somehow he forges on – trashing beloved cartoons and turning in a profit with production houses. How else would Gosnell still be directing?

The live cast features Hank Azaria as Gargamel, Neil Patrick Harris as Patrick, Jayma Mays as Grace and Sofia Vergara as Odile, Patrick’s boss. Azaria is fully committed to the role, giving the evil Gargamel a clumsy wizardly sneer that makes him pretty harmless to The Smurfs – think Wil-E-Coyote. There’s a conceptual problem with having only one of the originalSmurfs realm characters human, although, you can’t help but wonder how Rowan Atkinson would’ve handled the part. Neil Patrick Harris plays “the nice guy” well enough with a chipperJayma Mays to complement him, with Modern Family’s Sofia Vergara to spice things up.

The voice cast includes: Katy Perry as Smurfette withJonathan Winters as Papa Smurf, Alan Cumming as Gutsy,George Lopez as Grouchy and Anton Yelchin as Clumsy. They all fulfill their generic voice roles, but there’s only so much you can do with a script that falls flat… re-using the same dumb “Smurf” in place of rude word jokes again and again. They could’ve have just as easily been voicing the characters of The Gummi Bears or Snow White and the Seven Dwarvesand there aren’t any real stand-outs apart from Winters, whose wise Papa Smurf tones do most of the work.

The animation is okay. It’s pretty standard for a production of this scale and the 3D effects add a layer to the visuals, but the 3D is not much more than a sales gimmick and a bit of fun for the kids. The main problem with The Smurfs is that it’s a sequel. The first movie is meant to introduce characters, explain their precarious situation, explore their curious lifestyle and feature one or two skirmishes with the enemy – only to reach some sort of resolve. The Smurfs film-makers have fast-forwarded this to get us into the confines of the city and away from the smurfy way of life.

Usually this is a Part 2 gimmick to refresh a franchise, but they’ve decided that it’s just too difficult to capture the essence of Peyo’s world. Rather they’ve opted for the easy way out, trying to shape the characters against a alien landscape with a wealth of out-of-place comedy to draw on in-between repetitive Smurf-word, blue colour and cheap film reference humour. This forces human characters into a series, in which they never really belonged and makes The Smurfs something it isn’t.

The formula has been so well-worn that it’s a matter of going through the motions. Predictable, plagued by lame one-liners, weak jokes and a host of two-dimensional magical characters in a familiar world, this is not The Smurfs… no matter how many times they say the word. The live-action/animation mash-up has rarely worked since Who Framed Roger Rabbit and there’s very little original thought or imagination that’s gone into the making of this “adaptation”. It’s indistinct and inoffensive enough to sit through, but without an engaging story or any winning characters… there’s very little to Smurf home about, leaving the audience a little blue.

The bottom line: Plastic

Stephen ‘Spling’ Aspeling
www.spling.co.za
www.spling.mobi

AnGela’s work reveals her fascination with texture, pattern, rhythm, movement, nature and systems and there tends to be a finely balanced tension between the organic and the geometrical, the confined and the open-ended, the serious and the light-hearted, the intellectual and the emotional. More often than not, her work can be read on different levels and there is generally more than meets the unquestioning eye. The tensions, the complex amalgamation of various apparent opposites and the onion-like layering are definite attributes of her own personality.

The range consists of neckpieces, pendants, earrings, rings and spoons. Visit AnGela’s profile on Cape Town Creatives to view more designs.

Friends with Benefits

The two are hot property, so it’s quite amusing to find The Social Network/Black Swan pairing co-starring in Friends with Benefits. Yet, there’s more… with this comedy romp following on from No Strings Attached, another recent movie dealing with sex-based relationships in today’s jilted generation. Not only are the two films fighting for movie titles, they feature an ensemble of “incestuous” movie stars. Kunis played opposite Kutcher as a primary love interest in That 70’s Show and alongside Natalie Portman in Black Swan. So there’s more than sheer coincidence at play as these “socially-aware” comedy romance dramas resonate.

However, with these strange connections the two movies share a fundamental problem. Both No Strings Attached andFriends with Benefits suffer from distancing. Their moral compasses treat sex as recreation, as special as eating out, something that most audience members may accept on a superficial level, but fail to green light on an emotional level. This inner conflict alienates an audience, who isn’t blinded by lust and able to see into the crystal ball from the outside, preventing any real identification with the co-leads.

While the quickfire wit is quick and witty, it only manages to entertain as an echo. The script is smart, but the lines are delivered so rapidly that there’s an equal-opposite effect to David Lynch’s slowing down of dialogue. This glazes the emotional core of the primary relationship between Dylan (Timberlake) and Jamie (Kunis) and loses some of the hold. While Timberlake and Kunis look good together and deliver charming performances, it’s perceived to be going through the motions rather than investing in the somewhat predictable plot.

Will Gluck (Easy A) gets his stars to speed up delivery much like his previous film Fired Up, which adds to the density and intensity (the opening scene in The Social Network) – but takes away from the reality. To bring it back to reality the script employs some over-share moments, deploying awkward sex comments to provide an opportunity to laugh at inappropriate references shared between two people really trying to treat sex as a simple add-on to their friendship.

The witty back-and-forth slices the audience in half, emulating sitcoms like Arrested Development and Seinfeld. Then it dissects the audience once again with its blunt sexual interplay, making it very niche material for movie goers that enjoyed No Strings Attached and Love and Other Drugs. By now you’ve probably realised that Friends with Benefits is not for everyone.

Timberlake and Kunis are sweet together, there’s a fun cheeky chemistry to the romp, reminiscent of Fired Up and the script is sharp like Easy A. Unfortunately, the electric banter almost warrants English subtitles, the sexual humour is heavy-handed and instead of sincerity, there’s a slow-roasted sense of alienation on offer. It’s a plot line that can only really go one way as a commercial entity, so there are no real surprises other than a few voyeuristic shock moments – slotting Friends with Benefits as a preferred choice alongside its 50/50 counterparts, No Strings Attached and Love and Other Drugs.

The bottom line: Brazen

Stephen ‘Spling’ Aspeling
www.spling.co.za
www.spling.mobi

Master Harold… and the Boys

Fugard’s play contrasts Hally’s complicated relationship with his father with that of Sam, his caretaker. Ironically, it’s all black and white as Hally shows a superficial respect for his alcoholic, crippled old man – paying him his dues when he doesn’t actually think that he deserves them. Sam receives more sincerity and honesty, but their father-son bond is stunted by Hally’s disrespect, a product of his jilted generation and Sam’s lack of citizenship. Master Harold… and the Boys is about “collisions” as races, roles and relationships are tested to breaking point.

The stage play based in the confines of a tea room uses flashbacks to relay shared memories between Hally and his two fathers. This opens the environment up, allowing TV director Lonny Price, a chance to compose the South African climate with public segregation signs showing a clear divide. The play also highlights a series of conflicts, starting with inequalities in South Africa and drawing them out in the drama played out between co-leads Freddie Highmore and Ving Rhames, with South African actor Patrick Mofokeng as a supporting actor.

The decision to incorporate two international film stars has bolstered the credibility of the production, after Matthew Broderick starred opposite John Kani in the TV adaptation of the play in 1985. Freddie Highmore is a talented young actor, whose performances show consistency and an endearing quality that makes him likable. He would have been the obvious choice for Spud, yet his character seems bipolar in Master Harold… and the Boys snapping at any hint of embarrassment. It’s a pivotal role, one that he handles well, delivering most of his lines with a good take on the difficult accent.

Ving Rhames, known for roles in Pulp Fiction and the Mission: Impossible series, steps into a more dramatic role in this important little film. It’s good to see Rhames taking a co-lead role in a movie that delves into character over action. His role as Sam grows on you. At first, his South African accent is distracting – making him sound more a plantation slave in the Americas. What’s more, his thick set build and mannerisms just seem foreign next to a South African actor like Patrick Mofokeng. Yet, once the dust settles, Rhames wins our hearts over.

You can’t help but feel that two South African actors would have made the film feel more authentic. The name actors help give the film a commercial edge and deliver on the heart of the performances, but something’s lost in the translation to film. Another distraction is the inconsistent TV movie feel, relying on close-ups and pinning flashbacks and dream sequences on to give more space to the drama. This alleviates the tedious tea room backdrop and unfortunately, the pressure of the taut scenario.

The TV feel is emphasised by hints of melodrama with regular close-ups and the drama hasn’t translated well to film with a contrived feel and too much dialogue. The conflicts, contrasts and characters create enough palpable tension to keep Master Harold… and the Boys taut, otherwise there’s not too much to write home about…

Add a fairly short run time at 82 minutes and you’ve got a film that starts slowly and then powers home in the last quarter. The foreign actors, inconsistent TV quality, dabs of melodrama and sluggish pacing stifle the production. This is despite genuine heartfelt performances and authentic mis-en-scene, underwritten by a powerful tale of racial and familial strife. Master Harold… and the Boys is a story about collisions, yet the irony is that there seem to be too many conflicting factors at play – that function as both strengths and weaknesses – dampening the overall impact.

The bottom line: Disappointing

Stephen ‘Spling’ Aspeling
www.spling.co.za
www.spling.mobi

Keep a look out for pasted art, coming to a street near you. Khayelitsha got pasted today and the city centre will get the same treatment on Monday and Tuesday this coming week. We love this project that aims to get art out of galleries and into the streets where it can be interacted with and enjoyed by the community!

Paste. is curated by Shani Judes of SJ ARTISTS and Between 10and5 .

For this project, 15 local artists were selected to design, illustrate or photograph work inspired by the theme: Khayelitsha Culture. The work has since been converted into large scale wheat pastes and will be pasted around Khayelitsha and the inner city of Cape Town over the next few days!

See if you can spot one!

To raise funds for this project and for future projects – final images will be on sale on the Between10&5 website.

Artists involved:

Simon Berndt – One Horse Town
Cassandra Leigh
Lauren Fowler
Wesley Van Eeden
Jonx Pillemer
Russel Goodman ELLO – Love And Hate Studio Swain Hoogervorst &Paul Ward
Miné Jonker & Clinton Campbell from Studio Muti
Black Koki – Love And Hate Studio
Julia Merrett
Chris Slabber
Claire Homewood
Mak1one
Fuzzy Slippers
Donna Solovei
Yuma Yoshimura (TOKYO)
Linsey Levendall