Moffie

As an ex SANDF conscript, there are just too many factual inaccuracies for me to take the film seriously. A good attempt, but falls short in many aspects. Life was far more brutal as a conscript in the SANDF and the ending is left hanging in the air.

'Moffie' is one of those films where a boy joins the military, goes through the random humiliations of basic training and Becomes A Man.

Conscripted into the South African military during the dying days of the apartheid era, Nick Van der Swart (Kai Luke Brummer) arrives at a training camp run by sadistic officers whose vocabulary appears to consist mainly of the word 'f***' (with an occasional 'c***' tossed in for variety). The next several months feature route marches, bullying in the barracks and the eating of vomit. There is also a tentative, platonic homosexual relationship with fellow recruit Stassen (Ryan de Villiers) - very dangerous as homosexuality is illegal. And always in the future lurks a posting to fight communist rebels on the border with Angola.

While the basic premise is not, of course, new, what makes this film different are the South African setting and the homosexual element (which, contrary to some publicity, is merely a part of the story rather than being the whole). As Nick, Brummer is a heartthrob in the making and I also found Matthew Vey, who plays Nick's cynical friend Michael, appealing. Hilton Pelser as the sergeant must have needed throat sweets to cope with all the bellowing he is required to do, but is also given a moment of awkward vulnerabilty. It might, perhaps, have been nice if de Villiers was given more to play with as regards his character; for such a pivotal role Stassen is curiously one-note, reduced pretty much to noble suffering. But that is not a major difficulty; this film is well worth watching. Seen at the London Film Festival 2019.

Moffie is an Afrikaan slang word for being Gay. Throughout this film and especially during the atrociously brutal army training it is used along with many other anti-Gay words, and the numbing repetition of the damning words are meant to brainwash the new army recruits. Those who commit homosexual acts are ' sent away ' and are brutalised: one having endured so much under this torture blows his brains out in front of a group of soldiers. Each country has its hushed up and taboo issues and no doubt South Africa would no doubt not have entirely agreed with this brave and extraordinary film. I can also understand why certain Gay/Queer people would be unhappy that the homosexuality was toned down, but then I am not. The few scenes of intimacy are heartbreakingly tender and the most one sees is a tentative kiss on the mouth. This is enough in a film that shows how all tenderness between men is punched, hit, and inwardly murdered out of them. This is a War film that has little heroics and if some of the directors and actors of the spate of War films in the 1950's/60's could see this masterpiece they would probably shudder away from it. I will not give away spoilers about the War scenes but only mention that one killing of one ' enemy ' burnt itself into my brain. This was no hero stuff, but an authorized murder, and the ' killer ' looks numbly down at what he has done and the dying man in his agonizing last breaths stares up at him, telling us more about War than any other film I have seen. Only a great and sensitive director could have shown the inward horrors of War so clearly, but not emphatically. In the same way the lack of emphasis rather than the sexually explicit showing of homosexuality. Overall it is a heart breaking film about what men are forced to do. The ending for me was desolate, but then what else should I have felt ? The fatal word ' Moffie ' destroys in so many ways. As for the acting it was perfect. An Oscar contender ? I sadly doubt it.

I'd read the book which is atmospheric and weirdly compelling, if also slight and ultimately unsatisfying. But books with sparse narratives often make the best films (eg. Bridges of Madison County) so I was ready to give Moffie another go. The film is also atmospheric and offers some confronting insights into the apartheid years and South African army culture. Beyond that, it is less compelling than the book, and even more unsatisfying. There's a fatal lack of narrative drive and no real attempt to flesh out key characters - acutely observed in the book, but only roughly sketched in the film. Our guide through two years of national service is Nicholas van der Swart, a sensitive young man, struggling to come to terms with his homosexuality and experiencing the first pangs of serious attraction. In the novel both his inner and outward struggle is moving and eventually devastating. But on film Nicholas appears frustratingly passive and considerably less heroic. Kai Luke Brummer makes an attractive Nick, but the role is almost entirely reactive, which makes for a somewhat lame hero. Perhaps Moffie is the film that that book deserved - faithful and true. But it still feels like a missed opportunity.

Let's start by saying what this film is not. It's not an historical film. It's not a gay drama. It's not a documentary. It's not a war film.

What is it? It's a picture of a young man who barely understands that he is attracted to guys negotiating his way through military training, relationships in a brutal and macho culture, actual patrols in the bush and a strongly forbidden relationship. Worse, he is doing this as a native English speaker with an Afrikaans name.

I started like this because I think several reviewers may have wanted different things from the film as mentioned in their appraisals of it. That they didn't get it speaks, for me, to the excellence of the film which holds the interest throughout. We didn't need bludgeoning with details of the border war, a weepy romance, grisly scenes of gore and shattered flesh. Thank goodness we didn't have them.

We see, despite the in-your-face military training and the rudeness of barracks life, something that is almost impressionistic in its alighting from scene to scene some of which are respites from the relentless horror of instilling hard, soulless conformity into a company of disparate kids and some of which are flashbacks. The film is happening, we know the outlines of the situation, but it's as if it's happening outside the bounds of the events in the world at large which are incidental yet essential to the film's progress.

The loathsome oppressiveness of life in South Africa in the 80s is shown - obligatory church services, indoctrination, no dissent brooked, patriotism compulsory, psychological torture for those who do not conform, medical interventions amounting to abuse for those suspected of being gay.

In this poisonous atmosphere, Nick finds fleeting happiness with a fellow recruit Stassen.

After the conscription period, Nick returns home and fulfils his promise to see the sea together. The ending is perfect and equivocal and it leaves the viewer to use his or her own mind as to what might have come after.

As for the alleged inaccuracies in the script, so what? It's a film. I didn't care that the guys hadn't been shaved to a number two. So what if the sergeant would have normally been a corporal doing the basic training?

It's a film that will certainly stay with me.