Quote:
Just after the death of her newly born sister, Chanda (12) learns of a rumour spreading through her small village near Johannesburg. It destroys her family and forces her mother to flee. Chanda leaves home and school in search of her mother – and the truth. Life, Above All is an emotional and universal drama about a young girl (stunningly performed by first-time-actress Khomotso Manyaka) who fights the fear and shame that have poisoned her community. The film captures the enduring strength of loyalty and a courage powered by the heart. Directed by South African filmmaker Oliver Schmitz (Mapantsula, Paris, je t-aime), it is based on the international award winning novel ‘Chanda’s Secrets’ by Allan Stratton.

Through the eyes of a stoic 12-year-old, German-South African filmmaker Oliver Schmitz (Mapantsula) tells a tale both specific and universal. As it begins, Chanda (Khomotso Manyaka, an arresting presence) has lost her baby sister to an undisclosed illness. To make matters worse, her stepfather, Jonah, has stolen money from her mother, Lillian (Lerato Mvelase), to buy alcohol, so Chanda, who lives just outside Johannesburg, wrests it back so Sara can have a proper funeral. It’s a small victory before her troubles start to accumulate. Then Lillian falls ill, so Chanda helps to care for her younger siblings with assistance from Mrs. Tafa (Harriet Lenabe), a neighbor who loves them as if they were her own (her son passed away years before). Unfortunately, the widow is as pious as the rest of the township; she doesn’t just look down on Jonah, but on Chanda’s friend Esther (the soulful Keaobaka Makanyane), an orphan who wears outfits she finds inappropriate. But the girl has a sweet disposition, and Chanda takes solace in their friendship. As Lillian’s condition worsens, Mrs. Tafa recommends she return home, ostensibly to recover, leaving Chanda to tend to Esther by herself when she suffers an attack. Only when the situation couldn’t get much worse do Chanda’s fortunes finally begin to improve. In adapting Allan Stratton’s young adult novel Chanda’s Secrets, Schmitz illustrates the consequences for an entire community when ignorance and superstition overtake comfort and support for those struggling with substance abuse and AIDS.

1.58GB | 1h 45m | 1024×440 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/3614A298B92D732/Oliver_Schmitz_-_(2010)_Life_Above_All.mkv https://nitro.download/view/3AB41917FF88C33/Oliver_Schmitz_-_(2010)_Life_Above_All.srt

Language:Southern Sotho
Subtitles:English

The post Oliver Schmitz – Life, Above All (2010) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

From the Chicago Reader (Jonathan Rosenbaum) :
Shot in Johannesburg and Soweto by Oliver Schmitz, a white South African, this radical 1988 feature offers a grittier view of the anti-apartheid movement than Cry Freedom or A World Apart, both from the same period. A petty thief (Thomas Mogotlane) winds up in jail, meets other blacks involved in protesting racism, and gradually becomes politically aware. Banned in South Africa upon release, the film conveys a volatile sense of both time and place–according to the South African censor, it had “the power to incite probable viewers to act violently.”

From the NY Times (Janet Maslin):
The insouciant lead character in the South African film ”Mapantsula,” a thief named Panic, is as talented as he is cool. Panic is such an unflappable pickpocket that he can steal a man’s wallet and then stand there, switchblade in hand, rifling through the wallet’s contents while silently daring the victim to challenge him. He’s such a skilled shoplifter that he can wrap each half of a man’s suit tightly around one of his calves, holding the merchandise in place with heavy socks. And Panic is good with the ladies, too. As ”Mapantsula” begins, Panic’s concerns do not extend much beyond these particular spheres.

This fine and caustic South African film, directed by Oliver Schmitz and written by him and Thomas Mogotlane, the actor who plays Panic, is the story of Panic’s transformation. All around him, in the black township where his neighbors are vigorously protesting rent increases, Panic sees the difficult conditions under which others live, but he initially feels himself to be immune. ”These people live in a dream,” he says contemptuously of those blacks who hold regular jobs in the white community.

And he does his best to see that his girlfriend, Pat (Thembi Mtshali), who works as a maid for a rude and patronizing white woman, will herself lose her job. Panic visits Pat at work, insults the mistress of the house and throws a rock through her window, not so much for political reasons as out of the sheer, unbridled rage that is his guiding emotion.

To depict the process whereby Panic is radicalized, Mr. Schmitz gives the film a dual time frame. ”Mapantsula” (the title means something like gangster) cuts back and forth between scenes of a freewheeling, unreconstructed Panic on the streets and a warier man who is now in jail, though the circumstances of his arrest are not explained fully until the film’s end.

In jail, Panic at first shares the camaraderie of his fellow prisoners, who are there for political reasons, and he shares their jailhouse humor. ”At least we have privacy, and we don’t have to worry about being arrested any more,” one prisoner says.

Panic is treated brutally and insultingly by the white police, but this is only one factor contributing to his conversion. The others can be found on the street as he gradually begins to see past his self-interest to the harsh facts of black South African life. In true renegade spirit, ”Mapantsula” was made semicovertly (the script shown to censors was for an ordinary gangster film), and it feels more authentic and less contrived than other South African films that have been shown here. The interaction between blacks and whites in street scenes, the day-to-day routine of life in a black neighborhood, and the galvanizing spirit of black South African music are all powerfully felt.

Mr. Mogotlane makes Panic much more than a symbol, treating him as a raffish, amusingly overconfident figure at first and a visibly shaken man as the film progresses, until at last he utters the single syllable that encapsulates the film’s final point. It’s a dashing performance, and a fierce one, too. ”Mapantsula,” acted by a good and forthright South African cast, is also filled with the buoyant, inspirational a cappella music that drives its political message further home.

849MB | 1:42:21 | 640×496 | avi

http://nitroflare.com/view/9496F05A9E0B481/Mapantsula.avi

Language:English / Zulu / Sotho / Afrikaans
Subtitles:English hardsubed

The post Oliver Schmitz – Mapantsula (1988) first appeared on Cinema of the World.