To protect or not. That is the question

When you get the newspapers delivered to your house in Cairp Tahn, they are always wrapped in plastic. It doesn’t matter what time of the year it is, sudden, tremendous and unexplained downpours are possible. If people could walk around wrapped in plastic all the time, it would be the preferable thing to do, for the same reason.

So, when I collected my Sunday newspapers from the driveway this morning, and tore off the standard plastic wrapper, there was nothing unusual about it. In fact, there is a kind of delayed gratification thing which happens – because you don’t get to see the headline, until you have done so. So, I tore off the plastic wrapping and ceremoniously opened the newspapers.
I could not really have been prepared for what I saw. A picture of a white man, with a hunting rifle, kneeling over what appeared to be a dead, black, child – as a hunting trophy.

I read the story, my head reeling. It appears that this lunatic has a Facebook page with this picture on it. He calls himself “Terrorblanche”. But he is not alone. He has some 590 friends, on Facebook. So, there are at least 590 people out there, who would actively press the befriend button, to link themselves with a person who would post this picture on his page.

I went to his page, to see what kind of a person this might be. He describes himself (I presume he is a he) as having matriculated at Krugersdorp High School. He is self-employed. He likes Bok van Blerk, Leon Shuster and Afrikanse Musiek, amongst other things. His activities are self-defence and close combat fighting. His lists “knifes”, firearms and weapons as his interests. He has a picture of the original Eugene Terreblanche riding a horse, with the flag of his right wing organisation unfurled. So, in all likelihood, the man is close to psychotic.

Now, the immediate problem we, as parents, needed to deal with was, what to do with the picture on the front page of the newspaper? Do we leave it lying around? Do we hide it? Do we leave it lying around in the hope that they would not see it? What would we say if they did see it?
On a recent holiday to the Devon, in the UK, we went one day to visit Exeter Cathedral. As we arrived, a memorial service for a child was just ending. There was a picture at the entrance of the child, who had drowned and the body had not yet been found. Our eldest child, Gabriel, was extremely interested. Who was the child? Why did he die? More and more questions. And they continued for the rest of the week, because each day, there were more pictures of the child on the front pages of the newspapers – until eventually the body was found.

Our child was clearly dealing with the reality of death. Not for the first time, but this time, it was the death of a child he was dealing with. We explained that death is as natural as birth. That yes, we all have to die sometime. That some people die younger than others. No, only a very few children die at a young age, and it is usually because of accidents, like this one. No, we as his parents are probably not going to die very soon.

These were normal worries and fears, which any child goes through – and especially for an adoptive child. We dealt with them, as best we know how. Honestly and un-emotively. Telling him the truth, without the embellishments of afterlife and religion and bargaining. The moment passed, as is right.

But this! This is a picture, (which is probably staged – but then how does one explain to a child why it is staged?), where it looks as though a black child has been shot by a white game hunter – for sport! It is on the front page of the Sunday newspaper. That, I am afraid, I simply can’t explain. So, for better or for worse, we hid the page, from our two black children.

"Skoonheid" - (Beauty)

So, I have this cousin, who lives in Fish Hoek. He likes to walk on the mountains which surround the village, barefoot. He has a head full of shockingly white hair and a Stalin type moustache on his lip. He is a straight up-and-down kind of guy, in most senses of the word. I was therefore very interested when, casually, he told me about this movie that he had seen recently, “with loads of graphic gay sex in it. I was expecting him to dismiss it – but he didn’t. Far from it! “It was a brilliant movie!” he pronounced.

The movie he was talking about was “Skoonheid” – (translated Beauty), which has been getting some measure of high regard at the recent Cannes festival. It stars Deon Lotz – an actor, I have to admit, I have never heard of - and a range of other people I have never seen before in my life.

What is the movie about? Well, it is about this very ordinary Afrikaner who lives a very ordinary kind of life. Of course, he is gay (though he would not admit that) and fixates on a good looking young man at his daughter’s wedding. He becomes extremely compulsive about this young man. Essentially – that is what the film is about.

Now, you might think that is hardly novel – and indeed it is not. But what is so extraordinary about this film is the intensity of the primary role. The film is layered – repressed Afrikaner males, hypocritical, violent, angry, tending toward psychotic - and all the expected avenues are explored at that level. But there is another level, the ease and unfettered freedom of the beautiful young man – uncluttered with the history of the country. The electrical “charge” in which the younger generation operates, where older men on the prowl are simply invisible. The straightforward unedited, un-nuanced, almost naive business orientation of the new generation – happy to simply use contacts, situations, relationships etc, for whatever scheme they might have in mind.

And yet another level is that of the kind of inner turmoil in which some people still labour – there are frequent references to how little the government does, or cares; how the law enforcement agencies are sadly wanting; how the country is falling to pieces. Yet these remarks are made within a ring of deceit and evil which is carefully hidden from view – but indulged in and continued.

The layers are all there – in the veneer of respectability; in the role of father, husband and provider; in the lostness of someone still essentially damaged by apartheid; in a culture of ipods and trance music; in the hypocrisy of a person living an individual lie, but never hesitating to point to failure and corruption in the state.

The main character, Francois, is plainly a very disturbed individual. He cannot cope with the reality of his sexual orientation, but that does not stop him (and a portly bunch of similar men), gathering on a regular basis at remote farmhouses to have orgies. He starts to spin completely out of control – becoming completely predatory on the one hand and then reacting like a 12 year old, when he discovers his daughter in what seems to be not much more than a casual friendship with the object of his own desire. He stalks his wife and stalks this younger man. He plots in a cringe-making, amateurish way, to engineer a sexual encounter with him.

The result is explosive, extremely violent and utterly awful. The tension gets ratcheted up to an almost unbearable level – and then, one is faced with the mundane once again, with all of the contradictions still intact.

There is no resolution. There is no light, no glimmer of hope. The man continues, corrupt, abusive, self-destructive and unrepentant - dispensing either money or forgiveness to the people who are actually his victims. It is shocking to watch. Particularly if one is, let us say, of a certain age.

The title, “Skoonheid” is an interesting one. It is translated beauty – and the beautiful young man is the obvious object of the older man’s desire. But it can also mean “displaying an excellent character” – and with that in mind, the movie is certainly worth pondering.

Some reviews have criticized the movie for being "plodding". I have to say, I did not feel that. I thought it was brilliantly acted, nuanced and certainly unpredictable. But more than that, it has a gritty realism about it, which kept me wide awake.


Starring: Albert Maritz,Charlie Keegan,Deon Lotz,Michelle Scott,Roeline Daneel,Sue Diepeveen
Director: Oliver Hermanus