Hijack Stories - Oliver Schmitz

un film divertente, e inquietante.
Sox è un attore che vuole studiare come si fa il delinquente in Sudafrica.
cosa rischiosa, restarci è un attimo, e poi è difficile fingere di essere quello che non si è.
i delinquenti quasi lo sopportano perché è divertente, ma quando il gioco si fa duro è meglio non esserci.
Oliver Schmitz è un bravo regista sudafricano, sconosciuto ai più, peccato.
il film merita di sicuro, se riuscite a trovarlo - Ismaele

…Don't be misled. Highjack Stories IS a ghetto movie. Its documentary import feels diminished by a conventional plotline, with a tricksy Hollywood denouement.

Sox (Tony Kgoroge) is an actor who dries at an audition because he cannot relate to the character of a township gangster. Although from Soweto originally, his parents moved to Johannesburg, where he benefited from a privileged education. Even now, he shares his apartment/life with a blonde ex-pat, called Nicky (Emily McArthur), who pollutes the rainbow vibe with her inane prattle.

He returns to the township to research his role. "I want to meet a gangster," he says, naively. His uncle shows him some moves - the way you walk is essential to the look - but warns him off the criminal underworld. "I just want to touch base with reality," Sox says…

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…Kgoroge convincingly portrays a dislocated man seduced by the sweaty adrenalin of danger, his acting poses soon shifting into a real personality change, while Seiphemo and Moshidi Motshegwa - as Grace, a hard-bitten Soweto woman Sox grows close to - fit right into their surroundings.

Schmitz has long had an affinity with his country's black population, and he's come up with a realistic take on the problems of township life. He poses challenging questions about the social divide in the new South Africa, and asks what opportunities are really there for finding a new life - aside from hijacking one.

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…The film is colourfully shot in Soweto by Michel Amathieu and has a real sense of a community battened on by gangs who know of no other way of making a living but somehow surviving everything flung at them. What the film lacks is a convincing shape (something perhaps to do with its editing) and a screenplay that speaks about the Soweto experience eloquently enough. The action often speaks louder than the words but at least the gunfights and car chases are more than adequately done considering the small budget. And certainly the sound-track from Soweto musicians is a definite bonus, as is Martin Todsharow's drumbeat score.

Happily, after so long a break from feature film-making, Schmitzis now working on his third film OthelloDotCom, an African adaptation of the Shakespeare. South African film-makers have a hard row to hoe these days, but Schmitz deserves all the breaks he can get as one determined to talk relevantly about South Africa and entertain at the same time.

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