Neuigkeiten

Thin characterisation and a superficial critique of wealth inequality post-apartheid keep Uga Carlini’s fiction in first gear

The colourful opening of Uga Carlini’s Angeliena suggests a giddy ride awaits: the camera follows a suitcase plastered with travel stickers moving along a conveyor belt at an airport. But such vibrant detail only points up the film’s lack of emotional substance. A parking attendant for a posh hospital in South Africa, Angeliena (Euodia Samson) dreams of travelling the world, she adorns her little shack with tourist posters from faraway lands. At work, Angeliena brings a glow to the austere parking lot, pinning red roses that she grows herself to the windscreen wipers of fancy SUVs.

Such sweet-natured actions are presumably intended to endear Angeliena to us, yet reduce her to a unidimensional worker with a heart of gold. The thinness of the characterisation is made more pronounced by the...