Olivetti 45 — Mr Sithole didn’t have much to say about his role being censored.
But then, Parker Sithole, who is a character brought brilliantly to life by actor Mothusi Magano, didn’t say much during the screening of the film, Of Good Report, much to my enlightenment.
You see, a man so deeply struggling with his desire, the banality of his job and home life and his sick obsession with a young Nolitha (portrayed by the skaamtelose Petronella Tshuma) would not have much to say to an audience that
was banned from seeing him in the first place.
Yes, this Astertjie was fortunate enough to be invited to the Johannesburg press screening of the film, Of Good Report, to my delight presented at The Bioscope — an intimate, independent cinema in City and Suburban — where I could livetweet the whole film in peace.
Honestly, my eagerness to view the film that created such an uproar for showing or promoting ‘child pornography’ was rather disappointing. Perhaps I have a sick little mind, but I’d imagine some likelihood to pornography in a film banned for it.
The sex scenes were all obviously staged, which might rationalise some of the journalists’ views that the film contained a fair amount of pretense.
I will not be all cute and naïve about this — what, for the love of a garden (let’s not blasphemise) was FPB thinking?
I believe they were following the same little process they did with the 70s film, A Clockwork Orange. Perhaps one of my favourite memories was when my father caught me watching it at 15.
A heated debate (and we do enjoy a good debate) about what is acceptable ensued, and after I had him understand that nothing is new to a fifteen-year-old (heck, now it might even be younger) he entertained the thought by telling me of his experience at Rosebank’s Cinema Nouveau when he first saw it.
They (his naughty friends included) had to sneak out to Rosebank and were so stuck in their 60s-born conservative upbringing that they spent most of the screening utterly embarassed.
In all honesty, I didn’t spend every blinking moment of my first viewing of A Clockwork Orange in complete comfort, but I had nothing uncomfortable to feel for Of Good Report.
Fellow journalist Rebecca Davis accurately stated that “indeed, if you are of a delicate disposition, you are likely to be more offended by the violence in the film than the sex”.
I laughed when I read her other comment that the FPB’s decision is “sticking to your guns in a way that verges on delusional”.
It is quite sad and quite annoying that one of the better South African films I’ve seen in recent years will have its obvious dramatic genius overshadowed by dull old pornography claims.
Pornography, in my mind as a graduate that did a course on gender and sexuality, should only be there to stimulate the unimaginative, lonely people, whilst Of Good Report’s sex scenes were purely to tell the story of a naïve fling and strong, mad desire.
It is during those literature courses that I read A Colour Purple by Alice Walker as well as The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy — both books that, based on this quick judgement, should have been banned for explorative scenes of child rape and incest as a means of dealing with the past.
But who are we, the readers, or am I, the journalist, to judge the way people act?
Is that not what inspires the deep study and academic work in psychology, anatomy, biology and, well, literature?
In the least I am a happy journalist when I read that these moves are unmade in the name of freedom of speech and even more so when I’m allowed to be one of the first to watch it.
Qubeka drew on his own experiences of film noir and Théâtre de l’Absurde for this brilliantly constructed, bordering-pretense and yet astoundingly mature work.
In the borrowed words of Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie, “what this illustrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children”.
She said this in a speech about the dangers of a single story and it might just be the single literary rule I believe in.
I do believe this democratic South Africa to be but a child in a multiverse of storytelling.
We’ve only just started, and no classification will really stop us.
Some of the most illustrative quotes and tidbits (in my opinion):
• “You certainly come of good report, Mr Sithole.”
• “Do you ever cry, Mr Sithole?”
• The lines of the poem Dark Star by John Keats poses deeper literary context on a black board in the background.
• The cliché use of a tango theme to illustrate a passionate love affair.
• “I’ve made up my mind, babes, I don’t like Othello at all.”
• “Her friends found her in the toilet, bleeding.”
• “I trust you will watch her closely.”
• “You are a reckless dog.”
• “This girl’s head is as hard as this poly filler.”
• “We are not a taxi service, we are the SAPS.”
• Perhaps most flattering — during my mad livetweeting of the screening, the official Of Good Report twitter handle followed my profile for updates.
In no way has writing about it ever let me down. Kritiek Aster exits stage left.
