Films this powerful don’t come along very often.
Director/scripter Embeth Davidtz’s boldly unflinching drama is adapted from Alexandra Fuller’s award-winning 2001 memoir, which depicts the author’s childhood in white-controlled Rhodesia, before and after that country’s 1980 independence and re-christening as Zimbabwe.
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Sarah (Zikhona Bali), the family housekeeper, is the only adult who takes any interest in young Bobo (Lexi Venter), who has become an almost uncontrollable feral child. |
It's not hard to understand what drove her to this material.
Her film gets its quiet, skin-crawling intensity from the casual indifference with which its “superior” characters of privilege — or power — turn a blind eye to casual, systemic cruelty. In that respect, Davidtz’s film deserves pride of place alongside classics such as Schindler’s List and The Zone of Interest, although this one is even more disturbing because of its child’s-eye perspective.
The story’s primary character — she cannot possibly be termed a “heroine” — is 7-year-old Bobo Fuller (Lexi Venter, simply amazing), who lives on a family farm on the outskirts of Umtali, with her teenage older sister Vanessa (Anina Hope Reed) and their parents, Tim (Rob Van Vuuren) and Nicola (Davidtz). Three dogs are a constant presence.
It’s a dangerous time, days away from a presidential election between Robert Mugabe, favored by Black Africans, and the Western-educated Bishop Abel Muzorewa, viewed by his countrymen as a puppet controlled by the minority white population. Unrest has turned violent, with members of both races being slaughtered (although radio and TV coverage focuses on white victims).
The girls are warned never to enter their parents’ bedroom at night, because they sleep with loaded guns.
To say that Bobo runs wild is an understatement. She’s a completely unsupervised feral child: perpetually grimy and smelly, often dressed in the same ragged shorts and a gray T-shirt with the slogan “Come to Umtali and get bombed,” which is a) tasteless for somebody her age; and b) laced with an unsettling double meaning.
She often roars through a nearby village on a dirt bike, rifle slung over one shoulder, taunting the Black children to chase her. She parrots racist beliefs — “Black people have no last names” — not because she understands how hateful they are, or even what they mean, but simply because that’s what she hears her parents and their friends say.