Skooheid. Watch it, don’t watch it.
After a relatively luke warm reception at Cannes Film Festival this year, I took out some time last night to go see Skoonheid. The only Afrikaans movie ever to open at the festival. Let’s face it, it’s more “true cinema” than what Leon Schuster could ever do, and it doesn’t come straight out of Benoni, but it’s also not the best. The script is flawed, and it’s hard and raw. But worth a watch, if you could stomach it. In short, it’s a story about a middle-aged, middle-income family man, Francois, who lives in the Freestate, drives a bakkie and speaks Afrikaans. Francois becomes dangerously obsessed with the son of an old friend who works as a Model in Cape Town. After a series of rather random stalking events, Francois boozes it up in a gay bar, calls the hottie and asks him to take him back to his hotel – because he’s too drunk to drive. (As if South African men would EVER do that! They shamelessly drink and drive! – but then again, he’s dangerously obsessed.) A whole lot of...
