Triomf: An opportunity missed…

Then, as if addressing some invisible audience that he alone could see, he cynically exclaimed: "Ja, those people in that
movie are the trash that Apartheid forgot to dump!"

It was a cold and cruel thing to say. I disagreed with him, of course, but he curtly walked away before I could challenge him about his disdainful attitude to a film depiction of an Afrikaner family trapped in the intransigent psychoses of an old, discriminating and obsolete order, and of their fear of an impending, 'dark, threatening and insecure' dawn which Black liberation would herald.

We now know that, but for the savage massacres which occurred between the black contenders for the political high ground – coupled with the insidious bloodletting orchestrated by the apartheid Third Force, so-called whites mostly escaped the full horror of the pre-1994 civil conflagration which shattered South Africa and left an unforgettable trail of death and flames in the aftermath of that war.

Most of the characters depicted in Triomf lack the deep motivation required of such dramas, especially in their portrayal of the common but hidden societal malaise of incest within their small family relationships - (which sadly exists across the South African cultural, class and religious divide). However, to add salt to this critic's ire, the long-held secret at the centre of the story is only revealed towards the very climax of the film – partially enabling the viewer only then, to comprehend the sordid cause for the character, Treppie's, horrendous and sadistic behaviour throughout, but too late to have the explosive impact on the viewer that it should.

Lionel Newton excels as the vile, hateful, and uncouth Treppie. In my books he is deserving of an award of some kind for his sterling and believable portrayal. However, all the other actors, such as Pam Andrews (Cleo); Obed Baloyi (Sonny); Vanessa Cooke (Mol); Paul Luckhoff (Pop) and Eduan van Jaarsveld as the senile sadist, (Lambert), are reduced to playing stereotypical and banal archetypes bereft of originality and believability. As they say in the business, not all actors have the mettle or the propensity and experience, to transcend a poorly-written and directed film.

In the midst of so many potent antagonistic elements within the story, I think that the writers, Michael Raeburn and Malcolm Kohl, have missed a great opportunity to explore the cardinal and villainous effects of apartheid indoctrination and the role of its Church in the corrosion of the Afrikaner mindset and on other people - at the various levels or classes during the run up to the multiparty elections in which, ironically, the Afrikaner business class and their political power-brokers had played a significant role.
But for the brief star-gazing scene; a flower in a broken vase and the burial of the family dog, there are no poignant aesthetic scenes nor any heroic protagonists in the movie – just a proliferation of wishy-washy depictions of racial animosity between the nice-time barbeque Coloured boozers (as usual), and their down-and-out mentally stricken, 'low class' Afrikaner neighbours.

The whole film appears to be rooted in the traditions of the theatre of the absurd. Yet, it possesses strong potential to become a powerful stage play in which the hidden implied could engage the crude explicit, in a show of dramatic force in which apartheid and its evil political and historical progenitors are depicted as the arch antagonists.

The potential power of the story is undermined by a number of implausibilities. The lame-duck angry Zulu impis juxtaposed against the smiling, cordial and reconciliatory Black marchers did not exist at all in the run-up to the elections. The mind boggled somewhat at the attitude of the intervening policemen from the old order acting as peacemakers between their white kin and their angry Coloured neighbours.

For the record, and despite all the Truth and Reconciliation fanfare, there is an inexhaustible reservoir of untold tales of the Nazi-like indoctrination that was perpetrated on the psychoses of those Afrikaner communities at the very bottom rungs of the used, abused and forgotten, whose votes had historically kept the machinations of white domination running.

Apartheid has indeed caused yet untold damage, all around…

Triomf: Written by Michael Raeburn and Malcolm Kohl
Directed by Michael Raeburn
Produced by Michael Raeburn, GH Films, Red Pill Productions and Sycamore Films